Can You Come Out to Play?
by William Easley
Summary: June 2017: The Mystery Twins are high-school graduates, seventeen going on eighteen, and ready for a relaxing summer in Gravity Falls. Just kidding. It's going to be one packed with teen romance, a few tears, a lot of laughs, and a few things spooky and mysterious. All aboard!
1. Chapter 1

_I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them. I will ask, please, do not copy my stories elsewhere on the Internet. I work hard on these, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you._

* * *

**Can You Come Out to Play?**

**(June 5, 2017)**

* * *

**1: A Good Long Run**

Monday, blessed Monday, when the Shack was closed to the public, where you could laze the day away talking to Soos and Melody, answering Little Soos's endless strings of questions, holding hands with Wendy, making plans for the summer ahead . . . Fishing Opener coming up on Friday, with Stan sponsoring a big fishing contest—just ten bucks a head to enter, with prizes for the heaviest, the smallest, and the troutiest (retail value of each prize approximately five bucks, but then you got bragging rights, which are priceless, or at least worthless).

The Saturday before, the twins had called their mom and dad and had assured them that everything was peachy—though Mabel did ask her dad, "Why were you worried about us? We're nearly eighteen! It's not like we were gonna get _abducted _by a gigantic _spaceship _or anything, if that's what you guys were afraid of!

It was nice to see Blendin Blandin for a few minutes, too, before he had to slip back into the time-stream, though he told them he would be back before too long at the right time for a time-conversation with them—and with Wendy.

And the day after that, Dipper had enjoyed attending church services with Wendy and her family—even Junior seemed to have settled down a little, somewhat less of a jerk than Dipper remembered. He was dating a girl named Lindy Schellkraut from up in southern Washington State—she had been on a lumbering team with him when he worked for the Corduroy's cousin Steve—and Junior showed Dipper her photo (she looked like a muscular girl), except he kept his thumb over her face. "She don't want anybody to see this, and so I'll take another one when her face heals up. Hey, just a tip—you ever see something up in a tree and think it's a hurt owl, don't climb up to check it. It might be a porcupine."

There was a story in that, and Dipper was glad Junior did not tell it.

The Corduroys' minister, the Reverend Gaspell, remembered Dipper and after services asked him why Mabel hadn't come, too. "She and her boyfriend went up to visit her two pigs," Dipper explained. Waddles and Widdles, now full-sized hogs, had settled in happily at Wendy's Aunt Sallie's farm, where they had lots of attention and lots of company, including the goat, Gompers, who was a single parent to his offspring, Geepers.

"Well," Dr. Gaspell had said with a smile, "St. Francis taught us to show love to all our animal friends."

"If St. Francis ever met Mabel," Wendy said seriously, "he'd want to marry her."

Back in January, Wendy had moved out of the Corduroy cabin and had rented a room in, yep, the Shack—Ford's old bedroom, where the twins once had a run-in with the electron carpet. While she completed the last term of her freshman year in a community college outside the Valley and also worked as winter caretaker and then spring and summer manager of the Shack, Wendy paid an honest rent to Soos—one dollar per month, as high as he would go.

She wanted Dipper and Mabel to see what she'd done with the room, but not quite yet—she admitted that in the run-up to the twins' graduation down in Piedmont, she'd uncharacteristically let things slide, and she wanted to do some serious tidying before that. On Sunday evening, she'd done the cleaning, and some time on Monday she'd invite Dipper and Mabel in to see her new digs.

But first . . . way early in the morning, Dipper lay sleeping in bed, the sky outside the triangular window beginning to pale, but not yet bright with the morning sun, and dreamed of, for some reason, gliding down a winding, placid stream in a small rowboat with no oars. Wendy sat on the thwart beside him, though, and they were cuddling and kissing and giggling as they swept gently past pools with mallards dabbling in the water, a cat-tailed mudflat with a chorus of bullfrogs gronking a love song, under a fancy little wooden bridge double-arched to make a heart shape—well, if you weren't in love, it might make you throw up in your mouth.

But since Dipper _was _in love, he found the trip blissful. He could feel Wendy's lips warm on his, could feel her tricky tongue teasing, gently parting his lips, and then gliding into his mouth, where he used his own tongue to joust with it, and mmn, it tasted like peppermint, and—

_You want to go for a run, Dip?_

He awoke to find himself gazing into Wendy's impish green eyes, and he chuckled. He remembered an old, old movie that his dad had watched one evening back in the spring when Mom and Mabel were off doing some late shopping, and he murmured, "Of all the beds in all the Shacks in the world, I'm glad you walked into mine. Good morning, Wen."

She had reclaimed her tongue and was nuzzling his neck. _Mmm, I love the way you smell when you first wake up._

—_Um. Really? Because I don't think—_

She nipped his neck playfully._ Brings out the animal in me, dude!_

—_Oh. I smell like prey. Got it. Hey, I'm not going to be in any shape for our run if you keep that up._

_OK. _

Wendy pushed off from his bed and stood with her hands on her hips. She already wore red running shorts, a black vest-type tee shirt, white socks, and red running shoes. She lacked only her red sweatband. "So, man, we gonna run, or are you gonna get all sloppy and fat on me now you're not on the track team?"

"We'll run," Dipper said. "As soon as you let me get out of bed!"

Grinning, she bent as if to kiss him, but instead gripped the sheet and light blanket and yanked both right off him, leaving him exposed in his tee shirt and gray boxer briefs, which left very little—that was badly put—nothing unusually big, let's say—to the imagination.

"Glad to see me, huh?" she asked, chuckling. "Come on, up and roll out of bed and get dressed."

Dipper crossed his legs. "Well—little privacy?"

"Nuh-uh," she said.

"Hey, I didn't watch_ you_ get dressed," he said.

"Make a deal with you—tomorrow if you come down to my room before I'm awake, it's your turn. Come on, I want to run! Time for foolin' around later, man."

_We're going to be married, I have to get used to this. _"OK," Dipper said, giving up and getting up. "It's not like I'm such a big show or anything."

Wendy sat on the foot of the bed and watched him, well, take it off. He would run in the white tee-shirt, but he changed to athletic shorts—he turned his back to take off the boxers and don them, and Wendy whistled appreciatively. "Nice buns, dude!"

"I'll check yours out tomorrow!" he promised. Then he got into his running shorts, socks, and running shoes. "How warm is it?"

"Mm, not very. Pretty cool outside," Wendy said. Then she added innocently, "But in here right now, it's _hot_!"

"Let's run into town to start with, OK?" he asked. "I want to see everything again."

""Deal," she said. "I'm gonna run you hard enough for you to wear a sweatband." She took hers from her shorts pocket and put it on. Her red hair was now just as long as it had been when Dipper first met her—she had cut it off a year and a half earlier to support one of her classmates who had breast cancer (she was cancer-free now, Wendy had told Dipper), but Corduroy hair grew fast.

They stopped to get a couple of bottles of water—tap water, reusable bottles, Wendy was becoming more concerned with environmental conservation as she took her classes—and then went onto the front lawn to stretch out.

Wendy had not been kidding—it was not just cool, but verging on cold, temperature probably somewhere south of fifty. "My gosh," Dipper said as they started their lunges, "what time is it anyhow? The sun's barely up!"

"Five-thirty, just about," Wendy said. "Sorry, but we turned in early last night, and this morning I woke up early and just couldn't wait."

"You know—we could have—stayed in my—room for another—half-hour—"

"Uh-uh," Wendy told him, standing opposite him and mirroring his stretches. "Shape I'm in after missing you so long, if I'd stayed there another ten minutes, trust me, we wouldn't have made it to our run. Or breakfast. Or maybe we wouldn't even have come downstairs by lunchtime!"

"The Love God hasn't—shot you with—any funny—arrows, has he?" Dipper asked as they went out of the lunges and into the ankle stretches.

"Dunno, man," she said. "All I know is, if we mean to keep our vow, we are gonna have to be really, really careful this summer. You good to go?"

"Yeah," Dipper said. He picked up the water bottles and handed "Wendy hers. "Mom told me something interesting last week," he said as they started in an easy warm-up jog down the driveway.

"What's that?"

"She said you and I don't need to be chaperoned this summer."

"Man!" Wendy exclaimed, her smile broad. "That's practically giving permission!"

"That's what I thought. But we've kept our promise so long—"

"Three more months won't matter," Wendy said comfortably. Ahead, at the foot of the driveway, a panicky chipmunk skittered back and forth before choosing a side and fleeing from them.

"It's kind of a goal now, isn't it?" Dipper asked. "Holding off, I mean. I think we should wait until August, you know. But it's gonna be super hard."

"Oh, yeah!" she said. "I got my hopes up about that."

Dipper very nearly stumbled, but he managed to keep his feet as they turned and ran toward the sleeping town.

* * *

No traffic at all. The sun coming up red past the split cliffs. Their running shadows stretching long across dewy grass. A few woodpeckers tuning up for the first movement of the Machine-Gun Symphony in D. Way high something catching the sunlight as it glided over, just possibly a Pteranodon. Their footsteps fell in complete harmony with each other. Dipper recognized the old familiar loosening of the muscles, the paradoxical relaxed feeling of moderate exertion. They diverted to make a round of Circle Park, then around the water tower once.

At the spot where the woods came close to the road, a lean brown buck-toothed animal sat up straight on his butt and shrilly chattered at them. "We're not even _on _your lawn, dude!" Wendy called to him. "Hey, Dip, know what that critter is, man?"

"Ground hog," Dipper said. "Except up here in Oregon, I gotta call them whistle-pigs!"

"I have taught you well, grasshopper!" Wendy chortled. She picked up speed, and Dipper did, too, pacing her.

Like the snowman and his entourage, they ran up and down the streets of town. No traffic cops were out this early to holler "Stop," though. And almost everything was closed—most of the stores began the business day at nine. By the time they passed Greasy's, it was opening time for breakfast there—six a.m.—and Dipper saw Dan's pickup parked outside.

"Do you miss cooking for your family?" Dipper asked Wendy as they left Greasy's behind and headed for the Mall.

"Not one little bit," Wendy said. "Dad and the boys manage, and they eat out a lot more than they used to, and once a week I go over and make a good dinner for them. Now I cook only when I want to. And Dad has a lady coming in to swamp out the place every other day. I don't think you know her—Lucille Meddoes?"

"Doesn't ring a bell," Dipper said.

"She's a widow-lady, lives up about two miles northeast of us. I think Dad's sweet on her."

Dipper laughed. "Good for him!"

"Best thing is, I think it's mutual. Mr. Meddoes was a logger, too. He was older'n Lucille. I guess she's forty, he passed away a year or two ago at sixty. Stroke. Dad knew him and when her money got tight, he helped her out—Mr. M. didn't have more insurance than it took to bury him."

"That's tough," Dipper said. They did a whole round of the big parking lot behind Gravity Malls, then detoured to pass the high school—"So long, GFH!" Wendy called. "Been good to know you—sometimes! Like I started from the parking lot the time I drove the tank, remember?"

"Couldn't forget it," Dipper said. Especially the part where Mabel toppled down through the hatch on top of Wendy, and for about twenty seconds the treads chewed up the sidewalk while the cannon took out half a dozen store awnings before Wendy got control again. But McGucket generously paid to repair the damage, and nobody sued, so, as Mabel said, "That was fun!"

They even extended their route as far as a spot overlooking the lake, admired the Falls—in strong flow—and then jogged more slowly all the way back to the Shack. Dipper was getting winded. "How—far—do you—think-?"

"I'd say eight miles," Wendy replied cheerfully. "You did good, Dip! We won't run this hard every morning, but I'm gonna push you to get used to this distance. I mean to build up your stamina before August 31!"

Well—Western Alliance University did have a pretty good track team, but Dipper felt fairly certain that wasn't why Wendy wanted him in top physical shape by his birthday.

They took the long slow uphill pull easy and got back to the Shack. They stepped up onto the porch right around six forty-nine. Wendy said, "Not too shabby. Eight miles in an hour-ten. We'll get you to eight in an hour by the end of the month."

Soos was up already, and he greeted them with his whistle-pig style bucktoothed grin as they came in through the gift-shop door. "Dawgs! It is, like, so blanchin' cool to see you two come in like that, dudes, all red-faced and sweaty! Just like all those times in the past. Man, I'm so glad the space guy didn't, like, leave you up on the moon, dudes!"

"Kinda glad of that ourselves," Wendy said. "OK, Soos, me and Dipper are gonna shower off and get dressed and then we'll cook a big breakfast for the family, give Abuelita a break. Is that cool?"

"Totally!" Soos said.

"And it's OK if we take our shower together?"

"Um—sure, whatever," Soos said, giggling, shrugging, and turning red.

"Ha! Just kiddin' you, man. Though that would save water. I'll take the downstairs shower. Dipper, meet me in the kitchen in like fifteen minutes."

Soos followed Dipper to the foot of the stairs. "Uh, dude," he said, "If you and Wendy, you know, want to, um, save water or whatever, well, I won't say a word, dawg. Not a word!"

"She's teasing us, Soos," Dipper said. "But thanks, man."

Soos whispered, "Sometimes me and Melody do that. When Abuelita has the kids outside, you know. It's like good clean fun, dude. But take the rubber ducks out first."

"I'll . . . keep that in mind," Dipper said. "Gotta hurry now!"

He soaped up and rinsed off . . . in cold water. Just because. And he got dressed for the day in cargo jeans, a red shirt, and a Navy blue vest, like the one he'd worn years ago, though in a larger size. And then at the last minute he took off the vest, stood at the bathroom sink, and shaved. He could almost pull off a beard now, without the help of Mabel's lash extender, but . . . nah, too scraggly still. Give it another year, maybe. He slapped on some of his homemade aftershave (three ounces of rubbing alcohol and a half-teaspoonful of oil of peppermint).

When he came downstairs, he stepped into the aroma of brewing coffee. "How about one of our famous breakfast casseroles, Dip?" Wendy asked. She was laying out a bowl, a dozen eggs, a baking dish, butter, and other stuff. "You preheat the oven to 350 and fry up a pound of bacon. Use the biggest skillet—still have to do two lots. Is real bacon OK for you and Mabel these days?"

"She'll eat it if we don't tell Waddles," Dipper said. "Me, too. Dad's real lenient about dietary laws, so let's go for it."

"Good 'cause we're out of turkey bacon, and the real kind's better in this recipe. Get busy, dude, while I do my thing!"

Dipper remembered the recipe—one too high in calories to have every day, but a great change of pace about once a month. It used a whole dozen eggs, and incredible amounts of cheese—cheddar, Swiss, and cottage—as well as a large sweet onion and four cups of frozen hash-brown potatoes. Wendy also stirred in a mix of finely minced thyme and parsley, and when they popped the big casserole dish in the oven, she set a timer for thirty-five minutes. "Boom, there we go," she said. "It'll be ready before eight." She wiped her hands on a towel, sniffed, and then murmured, "Hey, Dip, how long has it been since we kissed?"

Dipper glanced at his watch. "Too long," he said. He put his arms around her and corrected that. She breathed deeply, appreciating his aftershave.

_Mmm, I love me some peppermint in the morning. Where'd you find that, dude?_

—_I invented it myself. Just for you._

She put her arms around his neck and pulled him tight for another long kiss. _It works, dude. It's really revvin' my engine!_

"You guys are so _cute!"_ Mabel, lured by the breakfast aromas, had come out of the guest room. "Hey, Wendy, look what Dad found for me!" She spread her arms.

"A new sleep shirt?" Wendy asked, breaking the embrace and turning toward Mabel. "Cool!"

Of course the _new _sleep shirt was just like her _old _sleep shirt, except it was, well, new and the lavender color had not faded, but it still had the now-archaic image of a floppy disc. "Dad's company had these made for the first computer conference it threw years and years ago," Mabel said. "Then in February they were cleaning out a closet and he found a box of these they hadn't used, still in their plastic bags. This is a Men's Medium. My old one was a Women's Small." She wriggled her shoulders. "Feels great to have a little more room for the bazingas!"

"Comfort's key, dude," Wendy said.

Dipper . . . didn't comment.

Little Soos came running in to be picked up and whirled around by Mabel, scattering giggles the way a rotating sprinkler scatters water drops—he was a chubby little kid, not quite the image of Soos, but you could tell, and he had a great personality. Right behind him, Melody, already dressed, came in with little Harmony (who fortunately took after her and was a cherubic toddler) flapping along behind her on bare feet. "Morning!" Harmony said.

Abuelita, a little more stooped, but still smiling gently, came next "The smell is so nice," she said.

They were halfway through breakfast when Stan and Sheila showed up, and they had enough of the casserole left over for them to sample it. Stan said, "We already ate, but it smells too good to pass up," and they split about a half-serving between them, prompting Sheila to ask Wendy for the recipe. Then everyone had another cup of coffee. After the cleanup, Stan asked, "So what are you knuckleheads up to today?"

"I'm calling my posse," Mabel announced. "Candy and Grenda graduated, and they've gotta tell me about their college plans and about being a baroness. Candy's going to Oregon Polytechnic in the fall, and Grenda's off with Marius to romantic Austria for the big wedding in the middle of summer! And I haven't heard from Pacifica in two months, so I gotta make sure she and Daniel are still a thing—"

Wendy gave Dipper a glance. Then she cleared her throat. "Uh—Mabes, go easy there. Pacifica's had a rough time. She and Daniel kinda split—it's complicated, but basically, a girl he used to know who's what he was, uh—"

"A vampire?" Mabel asked.

"Um, yeah, well, she came back into his life, and, um—well, they're kinda together now, and I think maybe she bit him, so he's gone back to the way he was, and—well, Pacifica and her dad had some sort of blow-up, and she's moved out on her own, and he cut off her allowance—"

"Poor Paz!" Mabel exclaimed. "Is she all right? Is she still in town?"

"Still in town, and she got herself a job," Wendy said. "But I know she's feeling really rotten. She won't talk to me, except just 'Hi' and 'I don't want to talk about it.'"

"Then my mission is clear," Mabel said, standing with one foot on a kitchen chair. "I've got to rescue Paz! She obviously needs a new guy! Time for Match-Maker Mabel to step up her game!"

"Well," Dipper said, "looks like the summer's started. Everybody buckle up."


	2. Chapter 2

Quick note: In response to some reviews and pms - Yes, I will be going on vacation, beginning too early next Thursday morning (have to get up for a 5 a.m. flight). I'm hoping to get through this one before then, but forgive me if I have to leave you hanging for a couple of weeks. This note will self-destruct with the next update.

* * *

**Can You Come Out to Play?**

**(June 5, 2017)**

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**2: Broke Girl**

The shift began at six in the morning and ended at six in the afternoon, five days a week. It wasn't much of a job, but it was all she could do, and Pacifica knew she couldn't do it well. Still—sixty hours a week at ten dollars an hour equaled six hundred dollars, before Federal taxes, insurance, and whatnot had whittled it down to $430.75.

Since five days a week she walked straight home, showered, and went to bed, you'd think that would be more than adequate. She'd lived on an allowance of three hundred a week at home.

But at home, her rent was free, not $200.00 a week. At home, Daddy's credit card bought her gas and clothes and makeup and whatever little trinkets a girl needed. At home, her food was free—or if she wanted to eat out, she had her own credit card (Daddy paid the bills) for that. Now she ate half-price for breakfast and a late lunch at work, which usually added up to about $120.00 a week. The other meal didn't cost her anything, because she never ate it. Weekends she had to eat out—her room didn't come with kitchen privileges—so there went another fifty to a hundred bucks. Mondays when she still had a few dollars in her purse were red-letter days.

Pacifica hated her life. She hated that people who knew her ate in Greasy's all the time, and that she waited tables and hoped they'd tip her. When it all began, she'd tried to disguise herself. She'd bought a home hair-dye kit that made her naturally blonde (despite what people said) hair a dull brown. She'd stopped using makeup, since it had become a luxury she could not afford. She wore a dowdy waitress uniform, complete with apron. She slumped and looked no one in the eyes.

She fooled about as many people as you'd expect.

She'd begun part-timing it after school and all weekends, and that was bad enough, but she got in twenty hours a week and made some money while she burned through her savings account, which Preston had not closed out, since it was in her name. Luckily, she'd found her room and had paid two months' rent in advance. And she'd squeaked by and finished high school.

Luckily, she'd decided to stay with the public school instead of going back to her old posh private school, where all the rich kids knew her. Of course in the public school a _lot_ of people knew her, but she didn't have that many close friends and tried to fade into the background. Her grades weren't the greatest, but her average pulled her through.

When GFH graduated her class, she walked across the stage and got her diploma.

Her mom and dad had gone away for the weekend and did not attend. She received no graduation presents. The next day was a work day. She was trying to save money. She dreaded July 1. That was the day the semi-annual insurance bill for her car came due, and she knew she would not be able to afford it. She would have to sell the car, and she'd be lucky if with the proceeds she could buy a junker from Bud Gleeful's lot.

She missed her two ponies. Twice, when she knew that her dad was away, she'd gone out in the evening to visit Desperado and Molly. The second time, her mom somehow knew she was there and came out to talk to Pacifica, but the eighteen-year-old jumped in her car and drove away. She knew the drill. Preston would forgive her if she'd just . . . .

Knuckle under. Give up. Do as she was told.

Those days were over.

No college for her, though she had been accepted at a prestigious (socially, not educationally) women's college that had only recently gone co-ed. Without Dad, she could not afford the tuition, which over four years would run a bit over a million. No college, no boyfriend (damn Daniel!), no . . . future.

That Monday, she'd come in to work at five-thirty, had eaten her breakfast at half-price, and had suited up for a long, long day on her aching feet. She had half the tables for the breakfast crowd, including Wendy's big dad, Dan (whose name made her think of her rotten boyfriend) and his three sons. They tipped OK, but they ate big. Serving the four of them was like serving two tables of Elks Club members. Back and forth, more coffee, more syrup, some toast, another plate of scrambled, back and forth, and ten other tables to attend to on top of that.

Tad Strange ate all alone, an easy customer, dry toast, plain black coffee, and he always left a tip, although in various strange currencies, here a 5-Quapik piece, there a silver coin with "Zhongguo Renmin Yinhang" on the back, now a 50-pence piece from Alderney, again a 60-centavos coin from East Timor. Strange was in for breakfast every day, and Pacifica had a pickle jar half-full of his tips and no idea how to find a numismatist who might buy them for real money.

For the first month or so, Susan Wentworth had showed her the ropes. Waitressing wasn't hard. It was just soul-killing. By that Monday in June, Pacifica had been full-time for over a week and was starting to doubt if she'd survive until the end of the month.

The one plus, the really big plus, the thing that kept her going was that the twelve-hour shift left her so utterly exhausted that she didn't have to think about Daddy or Daniel or Carmilla, or anything. Just go home, shower off the smell of grease, fall into bed and into oblivion.

The breakfast stampede passed by about ten, and then she didn't have too much to do until eleven-thirty, when the noon rush would begin. She helped in the kitchen, loading the huge dishwasher, getting some things from the big freezer, even dumping the garbage in the bear-proof Dumpmaster out back. Then before the lunch crowd built up, she took her break, went to the employees' bathroom, and tried to unsnarl her hair. It needed cutting and styling, but who could afford that? She tied it back in a ponytail, and she wore a hairnet, and it made her look . . . frumpy. And the bags under her eyes made her look tired. And the sadness in them made her look, well—you know.

"Customer, honey, table one," Susan said as Pacifica came out of the restroom ready for the next grind. It was early for lunch, but whatever.

"Got it," she said, picking up her pen and pad. She stopped in her tracks when she saw who was sitting at the table. Then, clenching her teeth, she went up to the table. "Hi. What'll you have?" she asked.

"Pacifica," said Stan Pines. "You know, I've been here maybe six, eight times since you started, and I didn't recognize you? You changed your hair."

"Yeah, new look," she said brusquely. "What can I bring you, Mr. Pines?"

"Cup of coffee, two sugars, um, Swiss on rye, brown mustard, no chips. Then sit here with me."

"Can't," she said. "I'm on the clock."

"Hon, I talked to Lazy Susan. You can take ten minutes. Please." When she didn't answer, he said gently, "I know you're tough. I remember you in that potato-sack dress you made for yourself. Just talk, that's all."

She didn't say anything, but brought his coffee and sandwich. They moved to the last booth in the back, where she tried to sit low. "What's the matter, Pacifica?" he asked.

"Nothing. Everything's just fine," Pacifica said. "I moved out, got a job, got my own room, everything's just peachy."

"What's up between you and your dad?" he asked. "You can tell me."

She bit her lip and shook her head. "Personal," she whispered.

"Boyfriend trouble, too, I heard," Stan said quietly. "Old girlfriend comes back in the picture. I know the drill, Pacifica."

"I'd better go," Pacifica said.

"Just a minute more. Listen, Mabel and Dipper are back in town. They want to see you. Mabel especially. You won't turn them away, will you?"

"How could I?" she mumbled. "I'm nobody."

"Yeah, I been there, too," Stan said. "Look, I ain't gonna con you or lie to you. Sometimes life stinks. You gotta play the hand you're dealt, and sometimes the cards are lousy. Not much you can do about that—except don't turn away from your friends because you're ashamed. They're not gonna look down on you. They'll accept you just as you are, 'cause they know who you are. Whatever happened may be bad, but it's not the end of the line. Where are you living?"

"Down the street," she muttered. "Maybe just out on the street next. But for right now, I've got a room in Mrs. Ballard's."

Stan winced a little. He knew Dinah Ballard, a quarrelsome old lady whose family home she had turned into a boarding house. A lot of transient loggers put up there when Dan's company had a big job and hired on temps. It wasn't exactly the place he'd pick out for an eighteen-year-old girl.

"Mabel wants to know if she can come by this afternoon at six to pick you up. You can come have a sleepover in the Shack with her. No other gals, just a time to talk. She'll get you back here for your job tomorrow morning."

Pacifica shrugged.

"I'm gonna tell her. Hang in there, kid. You got a few people in your corner, whether you know it or not."

She nodded and then whispered, "I gotta go."

Stan finished his sandwich and coffee—Greasy's coffee wasn't the best, but he liked it—and then went to the register and paid his ticket. "See the kid gets this," he said, adding a fifty. "Don't make a big deal out of it. Just her tip for Table One."

Gunther, at the register, nodded. "She needs it," he confided in a low voice. "I'm glad somebody knows she needs help."

"Whoever's on duty at six, don't let her slip away home," Stan said. "She's got a friend comin' to pick her up."

* * *

Mabel had been running down background on Pacifica's predicament. Candy didn't know much—Paz had come back to school after Christmas break, fresh from a New Year's Day break-up with her boyfriend and depressed, but she was still living at home then. It was sometime in late March or early April that she'd left home and started working part-time while she finished high school.

"She was pushing herself, I think," Candy said. "She was tired all the time, and she did not have her sparkle or her arrogance. She did not want to talk to anybody." Over the years, Candy had come to know Pacifica—they were frequent sleepover buddies with Mabel in the summers—but Pacifica firmly rebuffed all of Candy's offers of sympathy and concern. "Finally, I decided it was better to leave her alone," Candy said. "I hoped she would get better, but she has not, I think."

Grenda similarly worried about Paz. Despite her imposing demeanor, Grenda had a strong maternal streak. "When she yelled at me that she didn't want to tell me about it, I wanted to pound her," Grenda said maternally. "But I saw she was pounding herself." Wrapped up in her own last weeks of high school and in the ever-morphing concerns of wedding preparations, Grenda had lost touch with Pacifica, more or less.

Stan's light lunch had been Mabel's idea. She waited for him at his house, and when he came in at eleven and told her how Paz wasn't looking too great and how he thought the problem wasn't boyfriend trouble so much—that had shaken her up, but Pacifica had been through boyfriends before and had bounced back—but something that had happened between her and her dad.

"But what was it?" Mabel asked. "I don't wanna go into this sleepover with her without some facts. Being forewarned is like having four arms."

"Sweetie, I dunno." Stan sighed. "You know, when your bright idea got Preston's company back on its feet, I thought he'd changed his attitude toward his daughter. But, well, he's—" he hooked his fingers into air-quotes—"_growin' _his brand and he's kinda back into that money-is-everything attitude."

Mabel gave him a look.

"Come on," he said. "Sure, I'm greedy, but I'm greedy with a big old soft spot, and you know it. If Preston's got a soft spot, I think it's in his head, not in his heart. He's into politics these days and into spreadin' his brand globally—he cooked up some great big deal with either the Japanese or the Chinese, don't know which, but he raked in a lot of cash. McGucket says he offered to buy back the mansion, only Fiddleford don't want to sell it 'cause he's got his lab all set up there and his wife likes the house, and his son and daughter-in-law are gonna live in the east wing and all. So he turned down the offer, but Preston got huffy and said, fine, we don't need it, I'll build a grander place, yada."

"All Pacifica needs is a little love and encouragement," Mabel said softly. "She's such a cool girl if she just has that. Why can parents be so dumb?"

"Never had kids, so I don't know," Stan said. "But as a son myself, yeah, parents can drive ya nuts. You and Dip—well, there's been times when Wanda and Alex kinda drove you guys halfway up the wall, and vice-versa, but you guys coped and have a pretty fair relationship. Not every kid is so lucky. Remember that when you talk to Pacifica, OK?"

"Sure," Mabel said. "But I still want to know more—I think I might be able to talk to Mrs. Northwest?"

"I hardly know her to see her," Stan admitted. "The Northwests and I don't run laps in the same social circle, you know."

"I think I can talk to her," Mabel said. Stanley didn't know the whole story of the time Mabel and Pacifica had done a little body-swapping with the electron carpet—Mabel, in Pacifica's body, had spent time with the Northwests, had learned that Pacifica's mother Priscilla had a sweet side—though a bit embittered by maybe too much wealth and too much idleness—and loved her daughter.

"Ya gonna try to talk to her today?" Stanley asked.

"I don't know if it would be a, you know, good time," Mabel murmured, worried.

"Might be the best time you can get," Stan told her. "Preston's off in Toronto or someplace working out an investment scheme with some Canadians. He won't be back until mid-week, so the coast is clear."

"All right," Mabel said. "I'll try it."

"You need to contact a social secretary first?" Stan asked.

Mabel gave him a big Pines grin. "Nope. I'm Mabel Pines!" she said.

* * *

"Looks great," Dipper told Wendy.

"Thanks, dude," Wendy said. "I tried to make it homey. Only thing, I really don't like the stained-glass window all that much, you know? And Soos offered to replace it, but, strange thing, we can't find it on the outside."

"Huh?" Dipper asked.

"Straight up, man. The window's kind of high in the wall, but this room's the same level as the parlor, so it should be about the same height as that window—you remember we could just turn round and look inside that time we worked the admissions for Stan's big party he threw, where somebody stole Robbie's bike?"

"Um, yeah," Dipper said, swallowing hard. "Did, uh, did that bike ever get recovered?"

"Nope. Robbie's parents were mad as heck, too, because it was nearly new. He shoulda chained it, though—Dipper? What's wrong?"

"You're gonna know it anyway," Dipper said. "Now I won't be able to stop thinking about it, and the next time we touch—it was my fault that his bike got stolen," he said. And he confessed everything—the ten Dipper clones, plus poor Paper Jam Dipper, the scheme to ask Wendy to dance with him, the bike theft as a means of pulling Robbie away, the whole schmear.

"Oh, man!" Wendy said. "Dipper, you were like a little maniac!"

"Yeah, incredibly dumb," he admitted. "I know it doesn't mean much, but I'm sorry."

She punched his shoulder. "You realize what you did there with me and Robbie, don't you?"

"I shouldn't have," Dipper said. "But I was twelve, he was almost sixteen, and I wasn't used to how weird Gravity Falls could be, and—I had—had this incredible crush on you. Already."

"Yeah, well. I wish you hadn't done that, man. 'Cause if you hadn't, Robbie and I would probably have broken up a lot sooner than we did. I'd kinda known him since fifth grade, and we'd hung out in the gang, but once I started dating him and found out what a liar he was—that would've happened sooner. And I wouldn't have been mad at you for breaking us up and then right away asking me to go bowling!"

"I'm so sorry."

She hugged him, laughing. "Water under the bridge. Now Tambry's happy with Robbie, he's happy with her, they've finished a year of college, they're recording songs—it's OK, man, really. 'Specially since we've got each other." She pulled him down so they sat on her bed together. "So that's where the two Dippers came from that time in the cave," she said.

"Yeah. They were the last two surviving copies. It's a wonder they lasted as long as they did—copy-machine clones dissolve in water or any other liquid."

"Well, they gave up their lives to save Mabel. I'd say they kinda redeemed themselves. Anyhow—any ideas about this crazy window that exists inside but doesn't outside?"

"I think the Shack's alive," Dipper said.

"Get out of town."

"Well—maybe not alive, exactly, but more like—enchanted? Grunkle Ford once told me that when your dad built it, he used some wood that Ford specially imported from England. It's the kind that police call boxes used to be built from. Ford hinted that the wood was special, and he said he thinks that's why the Shack seems bigger inside than outside."

"Oh, OK, that explains it, then," Wendy said, deadpan. "Just like Hogwarts, huh? It grows a room of requirement whenever you need extra space?"

"I guess," Dipper said. ""Somehow it warps space, I suppose. You can go out this window—it tilts open—and you fall to the ground not far from the parlor."

"But we could look in the parlor windows and see the dance," Wendy said. "You can't even find this window outside to try to look through it."

"Warped space, like I said. Tell you what—let me try something, OK?"

"Go ahead, Dip."

Raising his voice, Dipper said, "Room, Wendy likes you a lot, but she'd like it even more if the window was just clear glass, not stained. And maybe a little lower?"

Wendy nodded.

"Maybe a little lower, like a normal window. If you can't do it, fine, but if you can, she'd appreciate it. Thank you."

Wendy was laughing. "If this works, dude, I may ask for a lot of things!"

"Let's see if it works first. Give it a week."

Meanwhile, though, Dipper had to admire the way Wendy had made the room her own. Ford had taken all of his belongings out—and the electron carpet was still in storage—and Wendy had moved in an eclectic mix of furniture, picked up at estate and garage sales for the most part: a queen-sized bed (larger than her one in the Corduroy house), a four-poster with a handsome but slightly chipped oak headboard, took up a fair bit of floor space. She'd bought a chest of drawers that served double duty as a TV stand—she had brought her old TV from her house—and she also had a study corner, where a desk that almost matched the bed stood against the wall, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase beside it.

Dipper couldn't remember the room having a closet, but a closet it had, and a walk-in, too. Not very big, to be sure, about four feet by five, but you could definitely walk in, turn around, and walk back out. The FALLOUT SHELTER sign that Wendy had ripped off from the bunker hung on the wall beside the bed, some of her posters added a homey touch, and she'd put up curtains over the window for privacy—though she'd about decided that anything gazing in from the outside would likely be a being from another dimension, not a resident of the Falls.

Wendy lay back across the bed, and Dipper reclined next to her. "So what do you think?"

Dipper glanced at her profile. "About the room? I think it's great. The Shack's better off for your living here."

"Thanks, Dip. And how about Mabel and Pacifica?"

"Well, you know—we'll see. I'm sorry about Pacifica's boy trouble."

"Right. But think about it. Daniel was a vampire for a long, long time. When he started to age again like a normal guy, maybe it scared him and made him want to go back to the way he'd been. Or maybe that vampire girl was, like, his first love or some deal."

"Know anything about her?" asked Dipper

"Not much. Her name's all. Carmilla."

Dipper sat up.

"What?" she asked.

"That's a famous vampire name!" Dipper said. "I wonder if—no, probably not. Like Daniel's great-uncle Vlad wasn't really Dracula. I'll talk to Ford, though, and see—"

"Dude," Wendy said, "didn't Vlad, like, have a talk with Preston?"

"I think he did," Dipper said.

"And Stan hung out with him some. Maybe Stan can give him a call—"

"Brilliant," Dipper said. "That's why I love you!"

"Aw, I thought it was my awesome bod."

Dipper lay across the bed beside her again. "Your mind."

"You sure?"

"Well," Dipper whispered, kicking off his shoes, "let me do a little comparison shopping."


	3. Chapter 3

**Can You Come Out to Play?**

**(June 5, 2017)**

* * *

**3\. Tears**

The big sprawling farmhouse that was now the Northwest family's home had been recently painted and re-roofed, and the broad lawn now boasted about a dozen flower beds, none in full bloom, but all showing green plants, their leaves emerald in the bright noon sun. Mabel pulled Helen Wheels into the long driveway and parked beneath the porte cochere, which, she figured, is what rich people have instead of a carport. As she braked, she noticed that a new garage had been added, long enough to accommodate maybe half a dozen cars. Off to her right, two ponies came up to the fence, their ears perked high.

"Sorry, guys," she told them. "Just me. I didn't bring Pacifica."

The pony ears drooped, they turned and, heads down, walked away. Poor uhthings, Mabel thought. They're looking for her.

She did not go round to the front door—you did that only if you had an invitation here—but rang the bell at the side door. In a moment, it opened, and she saw a familiar figure—sort of stout, bald, with impeccable posture and an elegantly upswept Guardsman's mustache. "Yes, Miss?" he asked.

"Welly!" said Mabel, laughing. "It's me!"

"Why, Miss Mabel!" he said, and he smiled, or at least the tips of his mustache lifted an eighth of an inch. "I am so pleased to see you again, Miss. Unfortunately, if you've come to visit Miss Pacifica, she is not at home today."

"And not for months, huh?" Mabel asked. "I heard, Welly. That's why I'm here. I'd like to patch things up if I can."

"Then," he said, very softly and touching a cautionary index finger to his lips, "do come in."

He showed her to what he called his pantry, although Mabel's eagle eye noted a significant lack of shelves crammed with canned goods, bottles of soda, packages of crackers, normal pantry stuff. What the room did have was one wall lined floor to ceiling with shelves holding china and a huge variety of crystal glasses, plus a desk with a computer and printer, a small office chair, and another small armchair. He must have noticed her looking around, because he said, still in that hushed voice, "A butler's pantry, Miss, can be a butler's private office, as it were. This is where I draw up shopping lists, plan menus, pay bills, and the like. Please be seated."

Mabel found herself speaking softly, too. "Thanks. Somebody sick?"

"You might say that," Wellington replied. "Have you had news of Miss Pacifica? I haven't seen her since just after New Year's."

"She's working in Gravity Falls," Mabel said. "In Greasy's Diner."

"My word, working," Wellington murmured. "And what is her position?"

"She's a waitress," Mabel said. "She doesn't like it, I hear."

"I'm not surprised," Wellington said. "I am so sorry that she and Mr. Northwest had such hasty, angry words."

"What did they fight about?" Mabel asked.

"Alas, that I cannot say," Wellington told her. "Not that I do not wish to, but I simply don't know. They were upstairs, in the private rooms, and I was nowhere near."

"Else you could have eavesdropped," Mabel said.

"Quite so. Although the practice is frowned upon, you know."

"Hey, if it wasn't for eavesdropping, I wouldn't know half the things I do!" Mabel said. "Uh, look, tell me if I'm asking too much, but could I speak to Mrs. Northwest? Just woman to woman stuff, you know?"

For about half a minute she thought Wellington was about to kick her out or tell her no, she could most certainly not speak to Mrs. Northwest, but then he took a deep breath. "I will conduct you," he said. "Be patient with her, Miss Mabel. Make sure she remembers who you are."

"Is she sick?" Mabel asked as Wellington stood and tugged his vest into place.

"Not in the way you mean, no. But she is far from well. Come."

They went to a long hallway in the center of the house, all the way through onto a screened rear porch and through the screen, Mabel saw a courtyard enclosed in a circular red-brick wall. In the center was a gleaming aqua swimming pool, kidney-shaped. It was gorgeous at first glance—but then Mabel noticed the ring of algae.

Priscilla Northwest, her brownish-blonde hair disarrayed, sat in a lawn chair beneath a beach umbrella. A round table at her elbow held a big glass pitcher dripping with condensation and about half-full of what looked like lemonade and ice cubes. She wore capris, white, and a short-sleeved pullover with horizontal Navy-blue and white stripes, a little like an old-time sailor's blouse. Her neat, narrow feet were bare, the nails spotted with red polish that had not been reapplied in a long time.

Wellington again cautioned Mabel to be silent and walked up to the table. "Madam has a visitor," he said quietly.

"I'm not at home," she said with no sign of anger.

"I beg your pardon, Madam, but your visitor is here. Miss Mabel Pines, Madam."

"Who?"

Wellington beckoned her, and Mabel came over to stand beside him. "Miss Mabel Pines, Madam. A good friend of Miss Pacifica's, you will remember."

Priscilla lowered the sunglasses that hid about a third of her face and stared hard at Mabel. Her eyes, blue like Pacifica's, looked faded and bloodshot, and sleeplessness, worry, or both, had pressed purple thumbprints beneath them. Without makeup, her actress's face looked too taut, the cheekbones too sharp, the smile more a product of plastic surgery than of pleasantness. "Mabel Pines," she said in an absolutely flat voice, as if trying to remember if the name meant something to her or not.

"I shall leave you ladies," Wellington said. "Just ring if you need anything." He pointed to a bell standing in a pool of condensation beside the pitcher. He nodded almost imperceptibly toward Priscilla Northwest and mouthed, "Good luck."

"You may be seated," Priscilla said very precisely.

Mabel dragged another lawn chair over beside her and hopped into it. Now that she could see it, the surface of the pool looked scummy with dust or pollen. A dead moth floated on the surface in the center. "Hey, I see a pool skimmer," Mabel said. "Want me to fish him out?"

"Who?" she asked.

"Mothman there. I think that's a Sphinx moth," she said, pointing at the big insect, shaped like an arrowhead and colored tan, dark brown, and cream.

"They ask riddles, you know," Priscilla said in an abstracted way. She sipped from her goblet and slopped a little more lemonade into it, spilling some. "What goes on four legs at morning, two legs at noon, three legs at sunset? Or where have all the past years gone? Or who has seen the wind? I'm sorry, did you say you know Pacifica? My daughter Pacifica?"

"Yes, I do," Mabel said.

"I don't know her at all," Priscilla murmured. "I thought I did, but I don't. And now she's turned her back on her father, and he's turned his back on her, and here I am in the middle. Did you say you know Pacifica?"

Mabel felt a tingle of alarm. "We've been good friends for five years," she said. "Pacifica and me, I mean. Oh, my brother and I always come up in the summers, and you remember, Pacifica's had sleep-over parties and I've been to them, and she's come to the Mystery Shack where we stay, and I've hosted sleepovers there."

"You had a brother," Priscilla said as if she had been wandering down her own path of thought, and was far away from Mabel's, maybe in another county.

"Dipper," Mabel said.

"Daniel."

"Uh, no, Mrs. Northwest, Dipper. Dipper Pines."

"He was rich, you know."

"My brother?"

"Daniel Raventree. Is he your brother?" Priscilla sipped her drink, slurping a little.

"Uh, no, my brother is Dipper Pines. Remember, he came to your mansion when you had a ghost problem?"

"We did. We used to have a mansion." Priscilla waved the glass in a wide arc but did not spill a drop. "Way up on the top of a hill. Like a castle. But we lost it, you know, when all the things happened." She frowned. "Poor Preston. He lost face. And a lot of money. I want to say somebody gave him a big bill. Doesn't matter. Water under the dam. Damn the dam. I'm sorry, would you like some?" Without waiting for Mabel to answer, she sloshed some more lemonade into another goblet and passed it to Mabel. "There you are, my dear. Only the finest."

"Thank you." Mabel barely tasted it. She didn't drink, but she knew what the sting of alcohol was. "Um, Mrs. Northwest, don't you want Pacifica to come home?"

"She won't," the older woman said, sniffling. "She's so stubborn. And she won't tell me what's wrong. If you see her, tell her I'm not mad. Say your mother is not mad. She is sad. Say that. Sad, but not mad. Oh, God, I wish she'd come back home!" She started to shake with sobs.

Mabel put her still-full glass on the table. "Well, thanks for talking to me. I'm gonna try my best to persuade Pacifica to come and see you. That'd be nice."

Priscilla nodded. She seemed to have lost her sense of her own attractiveness. Tears and mucus dripped from her nose, and she didn't seem to notice.

"Well, OK, I'll go now," Mabel said. "Thank you for seeing me."

Priscilla raised her head and adjusted her huge sunglasses. "It's been so pleasant," she said in her old voice. "We must do this again soon, dear." Her face was a mess, though.

"Sure," Mabel said.

She walked onto the screened porch on legs that felt weak and trembly. Wellington stood just inside the back door. "Any luck, Miss Mabel?"

"Not much," Mabel admitted, her voice unsteady. "Is Mrs. Northwest like this often?"

"Every day after noon," Wellington said. "And for five years, she was doing so well. Never a drop of alcohol, not even wine. And now it's started again."

"Welly, if I could get Pacifica out here—would that help her?"

"Oh, Miss, I'm sure it would," Wellington said. His voice had not changed, but she saw a tear trickle down his cheek.

"They mean a whole lot to you," Mabel said.

"They are my family, Miss," Wellington said hoarsely. "My father worked for Mr. Northwest's father. I stayed with them even when they could not pay me. I assure you, I would do anything—everything—in my power to—to reconcile—I beg your pardon, Miss."

Mabel patted his arm. "Let it out. You can take that stiff-upper-lip stuff just so far before you start to look like a duck. Uh—excuse me, but why is the pool so, um—?"

"That is where Mrs. Northwest always sits in the afternoons. She's neglected to call the pool service this season—that is always her responsibility. She doesn't swim these days. She'll merely sit there until it's time for me to summon the groom to help me bring her in."

"Bring her—?"

"Carry her, Miss Mabel. When she . . . falls asleep, you know."

"Oy," Mabel muttered. "This is pretty bad. Uh, Welly, are there any women servants-?"

"Three, Miss. The cook, Mrs. Cathcart, the housemaid, Mrs. Harris, and Mrs. Northwest's personal maid, Miss Parsons."

"Um, could you, maybe, persuade Mrs. Northwest to come in early today before she goes to sleep out by the pool? And maybe her maid could, um, tidy her up, give her a manicure, fix her hair better?"

"I will endeavor to see to that," Welly promised.

"Now," Mabel said, frowning, "I think I can get Pacifica over here this afternoon, but I need your help. And a couple of other things. Wait. Three other things. No, I think four. Are you up for it?"

"Do you think you can persuade Miss Pacifica to come back, if only to visit with her mother?"

"I'll guarantee it," Mabel said. "Do you mind if I bring her bound and gagged?"

"If that is what it takes," the butler said.

"Mr. Wellington, we understand each other."

* * *

Mabel slipped her Bluetooth earpiece on and as she backed out and then took the circular drive around the fountain and out toward the front, she alerted Dipper. "You home?" she asked.

"Yeah, Wendy and I thought we'd pack a picnic and go to the lake to watch the sunset—"

"Change of plans, Brobro. I'm gonna need you, and I'm gonna need Wendy. And both of you get your drivers' licenses if you've shed your clothes—"

"Mabel, I'm standing right here holding Harmony, and Wendy's teaching Little Soos how to dance!"

"That's OK, but don't teach them any of those suggestive steps! Come on, I kid! Listen close, Dip, 'cause here's what we're gonna do—"

The plan took her about five minutes to explain, and to her relief, Dipper raised no objection. He repeated the steps back to her, and she said, "You got it! I owe you one, Broseph."

"No," he said. "If this helps Pacifica, that's enough payback. You don't owe us anything. Ow, Harmony! Dat's by dose!"

Mabel rang up Teek. "Hi," he said. "You want to go to the movie tonight, or maybe up to Lookout Point-?"

"Rain check," she said. "Pacifica's in a lot of trouble."

"I know they kicked her out of the house," 'Teek said. "So what's up?"

"I'm going to help her reconcile with her dad—if I can. First stage is to learn what the heck happened, and I'm gonna try to do that tonight. If you want to help me, Teek—this is so hard for me to say, 'cause I looked forward to coming back to see you all spring—but the best thing you can do is let me and Dip go it alone this evening. I promise to make it up to you. Stay after your shift ends tomorrow, and we'll go wherever you feel like going, OK?"

"Sure," Teek said. "I understand."

"You are one in a billion, Teek. Thanks. Love you."

"You said the 'L' word," Teek said. "So let me give it back before you lose it. I love you, too, Mabel. Good luck with Pacifica."

"I think we're gonna need it," she said. "Man! I wish some of Grunkle Stan's luck mojo would rub off on me. Thank you so much Sweetie. Hugs and kisses!"

"Kisses and hugs," Teek replied. Yeah, even Mabel admitted it was silly, but that was kind of their thing.

* * *

In the home of Stanford Pines, Ford and his brother sat in Ford's study—already cluttered with piles of books, every single volume bristling with Post-It note bookmarks. Ford held up a sheaf of some kind of computer print-out stuff and said, "The results are in, Stanley, and I think I've pinpointed it."

"You should," Stan said. "After you jabbed me with needles like a hundred times! So what have you found?"

"You," Ford said, "are not my twin."

"Uh-huh," Stan said. "So what did Ma do, have you and then run out and look for another matching baby 'cause she wanted bookends? We're both Ma's kid, right?"

"Right," Ford said.

"And you better not tell me we ain't Filbrick Pines's son, cause, let's face it, we both inherited his ugly!"

"No, no, we're the offspring of our parents," Ford said. "I should clarify. You are not my _identical_ twin. You used to be, but you're not any longer."

"What did I do, resign?" Stan bellowed. "Look, Ford, goofiness gives me a bellyache after a while. What the heck are you talking about?"

"Your baby teeth," Ford explained.

"OK, you've gone round the bend. Enjoy the trip."

"Let me tell it in order," Ford said. "Mom had those odd little picture frames made for our baby pictures, remember? And she saved our baby teeth and had them glued to the frame."

"Yeah, one of the ungodliest things—"

"Now, you remember your upper right incisor—"

"The one I chipped?"

"Exactly! Well, I was certain that the one glued to the frame of your photo was yours, because there it was in the photo, with the little chip out of the corner. I was able to extract a very tiny DNA sample from that tooth—and that proved that you and I _are _identical twins! Or were. But the samples I took from you a couple of months ago show that were are not, _now_, identical twins. We're very close, but not identical."

Stan faked a yawn. "Wake me up if this gets interesting."

Ford said, "Stan—you've become a mutant."

Stanley frowned. "Like the guy that got belted with gamma rays, so he turns into the Hulk and gets unglamour-rays?"

Ford stared at him blankly. "I don't know what that is."

"Forget it. Look, am I gonna turn into Spider-man or some deal?"

"No, no, it's just that a change in your genome—well in one gene actually—seems to have, and I know this sounds incredible—"

"Yeah, and boring," Stan muttered.

"—but the minute changes in that gene somehow seem to have enhanced your luck."

"Got on a pair of lucky genes, huh?" Stan asked. "What causes that?"

"Precisely!" Ford said. "What causes that?"

"I asked you first!" Stan said.

"I don't know!"

"Oh, he plays third base," Stan said.

"What? Who?"

"Second and first, but never mind. What could have changed my genometry?"

"Genome," Ford corrected. "I don't really know. It's almost as if some radioactive material, I don't know how, was repeatedly smeared across your forehead."

"Like nuclear waste?"

"Yes, but that's impossible."

"I know," Stan said dryly. "You can't be too careful with that stuff!"

"I suppose it could be something totally random," Ford mused. "A chance direct hit by a cosmic ray."

"Or maybe I got bit by a radioactive spider," Stan said. "Look, Poindexter, if you're dancin' around it, just tell me, man to man, brother to brother, wiseman to wise-ass, am I gonna get like a tumor or some deal?"

"What?" Ford asked, looking startled. "No! No, you're perfectly healthy, and of course we're still brothers and still look alike, but it's only that in one small respect, we are no longer identical."

"So this thing is just gonna let me keep winning at cards and dice?"

"Yes, I suppose," Ford said. "And possibly evade accidents and such without harm."

"OK," Stan said. "I'll take it. How about a beer?"

"Um—Rimrock?" Ford asked, opening the small refrigerator beside his desk. "I have two."

"Man," Stan said, grinning, "am I lucky!"

* * *

That afternoon as soon as Pacifica's shift ended, she hurried back to the break room to change into jogging pants and a pullover tee, trying to get away before Mabel showed up—

But there she sat in one of the chairs at the small table, leaning back, her feet propped up. "Hi," Mabel said, beaming. "Man, they keep you jumping! Any cute guys come in today, hmm?"

"Mabel," Pacifica said, wilting. She started to change out of her uniform, hastily pulling on the soft pants and the plain yellow tee. "I really feel exhausted. I'm gonna take a pass on the sleepover." She brushed strands of hair out of her face with a palm that felt greasy. "I—I'm such a m-mess—"

"Yeah, well, I'm a pretty big mess myself," Mabel said. "Come on, Paz. You're still you. You're still pretty, even though you got coffee stains on your pants there and the tee needs washing, but we'll take care of that. Come on!" In a sing-song, she added, "I got a surprise for you!"

"Mabel, please," Pacifica begged. "I—look, I—can't—be your—f-friend—"

"Not with that attitude, Missy!" Mabel said brightly. "Come ON, Paz! I'm me, you're you, we been through a lot, and nothing is gonna change that. I know you're tired. We are not gonna stay up until four a.m., we're not gonna play Truth or Dare. We're gonna have a heart to heart, and I want to show you your surprise. You need to take the uniform to be washed?"

"What? Um, no, they—they give me three, so I'll wear that one another day, and change on Wednesday—it's so gross!"

"Come along, come along," Mabel said. "I'm glad you're wearing pants."

"I still don't understand half the things you say," Pacifica said.

"Still batting above Dipdop's average!" Mabel said.

Pacifica stopped beside Mabel's car. "Oh, God, Dipper! He came to Gravity Falls with you, didn't he?"

"Yuppers. But he drove his own car. Can you imagine it, he got a new shiny used three-year-old Range Runner and didn't even name it. Boys, huh?" Mabel opened the passenger door and held it. "Get in, get in, get in!"

"I don't want to. I don't want Dipper to see me like this—"

"You think you're so special?" Mabel asked. "Heck, he's seen Wendy without any make-up! Of course, she just wears a little blush and a little lipstick, but even so. And he's seen me when I don't even have foundation on! You know what I look like then?"

Pacifica bit her lip and shook her head.

"I look like DIPPER! Waugggh!"

Despite herself, Pacifica laughed. Just a little.

"There you go," Mabel said. "Little smile's better than a couple gallons of_ Clé de Peau Beauté."_

"That was my foundation cream," Pacifica said. "That surprise—you didn't—it's terribly expensive!"

"That's not it. Get in the car! What are you waiting for, a kiss on the cheek? _Mwah_!"

Pacifica touched her cheek. "You didn't have to do that. I smell like roast beef."

"New scent for evening—_Essence de Roastbeef de Paris. _Wear that to a dance at my old high school, and you'd have football jocks fighting to dance with you."

"Old high school," Pacifica murmured.

"Get. In. The. Car. Please," Mabel said.

Pacifica surrendered and slipped into the passenger seat. Mabel got behind the wheel. "Yep, old high school. We're alumna. Alumnae? Aluminum? We are now former high schoolers! Yay!" She started the engine.

"You don't feel sad about that?" Pacifica asked.

"Mm, miss some of the people, that's all. But I've learned to look ahead. Seat belt!"

Pacifica clicked the belt. "Me, I feel like the best part of my life is over."

"We're gonna work on adjusting that attitude. Here we go!" But despite her enthusiastic yelp, Mabel actually drove well within the speed limit. She beeped her horn, scaring Gideon and his girlfriend Ulva—who for a moment looked like she'd enjoy dropping to all fours and chasing the car—but they both recognized Mabel, smiled, and waved from the sidewalk.

"Where are we going?" Pacifica asked as Mabel turned right on a side street.

"Keep your hair on. You'll see. And I promise you'll like it," Mabel told her. She turned onto the grass near the water tower, set the parking brake, and got out. "Your conveyance awaits, milady," she said. "Hey, I played Eliza Doolittle—oh, yeah, told you that already. That was fun! Whoa, who's that coming out of the trees there?"

Pacifica turned to look where Mabel was pointing. "Oh!" she said.

Here's a problem with describing something like that "oh." It was like the "oh" of a child seeing Santa Claus right in his own house. The "oh" of a mother seeing her newborn for the first time ever. The "oh" of a saint vouchsafed a glimpse of heaven. All rolled into one.

Pacifica tried to get out of the car. "Hang on!" Mabel said, leaning in to unfasten her seatbelt. "Now go get 'em."

Dipper, who looked a mite uneasy, walked toward them, holding the bridles of two ponies, one very dark, one a pinto.

"You didn't!" Pacifica said. She took a couple of steps. Dipper, valiantly holding onto the two ponies, had to run to keep up with them. Pacifica, laughing and crying at the same time, hugged their muzzles, kissed them, patted them. "You guys," she said. "This is—thank you so much!"

"Which one are you riding?" Mabel asked.

"Which—what do you mean?" Pacifica asked.

"Which horse do you want to ride?"

"Desperado," Pacifica said. "He's my favorite—sorry, Molly—but—where?"

"We're going to ride them back to your farm," Mabel said. "We have to. They can't get there any other way."

"But Dad—"

"Is away until day after tomorrow," Mabel said. "Paz, look at me. Look at my eyes. And see, no fingers crossed. This is the straight skinny, as Soos says. Paz—your mom needs you. Bad."

"Is she—sick?" Pacifica whispered.

"In a way, yes," Mabel said. "And you know what? You're the only medicine that can cure her. Saddle up!"

"But—Molly—"

"I am gonna ride Molly," Mabel said. "And I'll probably bust my tail bone or fall off or something, so don't gallop, OK? It's six miles to your place, but let me get up in the saddle and hang on, and one way or another, we'll get these ponies home."

"I'll drive Helen Wheels out," Dipper said. "Meet you there, and I'll pick up Wendy."

"Wendy?" Pacifica, who had expertly mounted Desperado—the pony began to prance in place—"Is she there?"

"Somebody had to drive the pickup and horse trailer!" Mabel said. "OK, we're going to your place, you'll have a shower and find some clothes to wear, and then you and your mom can talk it out. Now, I don't care if you cry, or have hysterics, or have a slap-fight or a tickle-fight or a thumb-war, as long as you talk. I'll stay out of your way, and when your talk is over—"

"What?" Pacifica asked.

Mabel had Dipper form stirrups with his hands to boost her and got into Molly's saddle without falling over on the other side. "Give me the reins," she said, and Dipper handed them to her. He also handed up a bicycle helmet. "Wear it for me," he said.

She stuck her tongue out, but strapped the helmet on. That done, she said, "Show me the gas and the brake."

They sort of worked that out and she took a practice round of the grassy spot around the water tower. "I can manage it," she said. "If you go first, will she follow?"

"Sure," Pacifica said. "I wish I had my own helmet—"

"Here," Dipper said. He handed her old helmet up to her. "Good to see you again, Paz."

"I look horrible."

"Not to me," he said. "Not to any of your friends."

Mabel, impatient now, asked, "Where was I? Oh, yeah. When your talk with your mother is over, then we'll decide."

"Decide what?" asked Pacifica.

"Decide what comes next. Let's go. You may drive, Dip. But be careful with Helen Wheels! Oh, my dear, you can never trust a rash young man at the helm of a motorcar—"

Dipper grinned. He got into Helen Wheels, started the engine, patted the dash, and said, "Don't get jealous, old girl. That's just a horsey. The one Mabel really loves is you!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Can You Come Out to Play?**

**(June 5, 2017)**

* * *

**4\. Sometimes You Just Need to Talk**

While Mabel was seeing to it that Pacifica and her ponies got home safely—and it has to be said that Molly, the pony Mabel rode, was both exceptionally docile and agile, because she went along at an easy gait, matching Desperado, who took the lead, not once spooking or balking, and every time Mabel came close to slipping off to the left or the right, Molly compensated. Someone once counseled beginning horse riders, "Remember, you're not driving the horse. It's a partnership." In this case, Molly was clearly the senior partner.

Dipper paced them for a few minutes in Helen Wheels, then waved and drove on ahead. He had been to the farm once or twice, but he drove slowly for fear of missing it. He needn't have worried—it lay on a sloping but even sweep of land off to the right, and its size made it unmistakable. As he turned in at the drive, he saw the pickup and horse trailer parked near the barn, to the left of the house, so he pulled into the barnyard and parked. He heard Wendy's laugh spilling from behind the barn and followed it. "Oh, hi, Dipper," she said as he came around the corner. "I was just talking to Mr. Griffin here. He takes care of the ponies."

"Thirty years, come September," the man said proudly. He was shorter than Wendy, heavyset but not fat, about fifty, with a wreath of gray hair around a bald pate, a round nose that looked like a ripe strawberry, and he wore mud-caked boots, baggy khakis held on by rainbow suspenders, a rumpled blue work shirt, and an open brown vest. He had also tied a red bandana around his neck. "How are you, boyo?"

Dipper heard the echo of Ireland in his voice. "Fine, thanks. Pacifica and Mabel should be here in about an hour."

"Well, praise be for that," Mr. Griffin said. "I was just telling your young lady here, time was when the Northwests had as fine a string of polo ponies as any west of the Rockies. When Mr. Preston was your age, he was a champion polo player. You can see the trophies up in the sitting room on the second floor. His pony was Dancer, the neatest animal you ever saw on a polo field. He had it all, the speed, the spark, the wit." Griffin sighed. "Then Mr. Preston was off to business college, and when he got back, he had no time for polo. Pity. But we kept eight ponies here all the time, up until he had his troubles. Wait a bit, though. You and your sister Mabel, a few years back—you were the ones who bought Molly back from the thief who'd stolen her, am I right?"

"Well, really, it was more our great-uncle's doing," "Dipper said. "I thought the man bought her, though—why's he a thief, Mr. Griffin?"

"None of that, none of that! I'm 'mister' to nobody, boyo, it's Jimmy, and don't you forget it, lad! Jimmy Griffin, man and boy. And forgive me, Miss Wendy here just told me your name, but—"

"Dipper," he said. "Dipper Pines."

"Dipper. Dipper! I'll try to remember. I can remember the name of every horse or pony I ever met, but human names, now, if they slip my mind, it's because I'm a solitary, lone old man, so I'll ask you to forgive me. Why did I call that lop-eared villain a thief? Didn't he pay poor Mr. Preston a third—third?—a measly quarter of what Molly was worth? And Mr. Preston had to take it, being so desperate to hold onto some of his money. I'll never know how he came to lose so much all at one blow."

Wendy said, "Mr. Griffin—excuse me, I meant Jimmy—wasn't in Gravity Falls that August when, you know, it happened."

Oh. Weirdmageddon, she meant. "A lot of things happened that month," he said.

"Yes, when I got back, Mrs. Priscilla told me they might have to let me go, and they'd already agreed to sell off the big house in town, I never was inside it even once, but I'm told it was grand, and they were selling off the ponies, all but Desperado. But Wellington and me, we got together and told them we'd stay, having some savings of our own, and if they'd give us somewheres to live, we'd stick, and stick we did. Well, cut it short, Jimmy, cut it short, then Mr. Preston's business picked up again the next year, and now Wellington and me are on salary again, though before God I'm ashamed to take the money for caring for just two ponies. And they moved into the summer house, so they're here all the time, so there's more company than there used to be, and that's a pleasure when you're fifty-two and feeling old and cranky."

Dipper glanced at Wendy, who just smiled. He reached for her hand. _–Has he been talking like this since you got here?_

_Running on and on, man. I don't mind. He's a sweet guy, and I think he bottles up his words until he finds somebody's ears to pour them in._

"Now, that pony of Miss Pacifica's, that Desperado, you'd never believe the orneriness in him when first Mr. Preston bought him. Dash and spirit, spirit and dash! But I have a good eye for a pony, that I do, and I says to him, I says, 'Mr. Preston, sir, let me have a month to train him, and he'll be a fine gift for the baby.' I said that, though Miss Pacifica was no baby, she was, I suppose, about eight years old then, but ride? She could ride as if she'd been born in the saddle!"

What Griffin said wasn't always interesting, but flowing along in the lilting cadence of a soft Irish accent a little Americanized, it wasn't bad to listen to. Wendy and Dipper leaned against the barn next to him and listened and watched his blunt fingers gesture and point out the spot where Pacifica, nine years old, jumped Desperado over a fence, wheeled, and jumped him back again, and the place where once she'd taken a bad spill, but got up with a bloody leg and didn't cry or even stanch the wound, just let it bleed, while she checked out the pony first—it was uninjured—and only then did she calmly ask, "Jimmy, do you have a handkerchief? I think I may need stitches." Griffin wound up the anecdote with, "That's the kind of girl Miss Pacifica was at ten years old. Now, that's how you tell a thoroughbred!"

After an hour Griffin had just started to slow down a bit when he cocked his head. "Listen to the music! That's Desperado and Molly coming right behind him, or I'm deaf as a post!"

It was. Pacifica dismounted, Griffin lifted Mabel bodily down—though she probably weighed three-quarters of what he did—and she said, "That was fun! And I think I'll have saddle sores."

When he had the reins of both ponies, Griffin said, "I'll see these animals in and give them a good rub-down, Miss Pacifica. It's grand to see you home again."

"Thanks, Jimmy." Pacifica said. "Wait—oh, Jimmy!" She hugged him, the ponies looking on interestedly. Her voice muffled against his bandana, Pacifica said, "I've missed you so much!"

"There, there, child," Griffin said. He let go of Molly's reins—probably knowing she would not be the lass to act up—and patted Pacifica's back. "It's not home without you, and that's the truth of it."

Pacifica was still weeping as he led the ponies into the barn. "Don't look at me," she mumbled. "I'm such a mess."

Wendy hugged her. "Paz, that doesn't matter. Look over at the house."

Wellington stood in the doorway, holding it open patiently. "Welcome home, Miss," he said as they came near.

Pacifica hesitated, but then hugged him, too. "I'm so sorry," she said.

"Don't be," Wellington said. "We're delighted to see you. Shall I have Parsons run your bath?"

"Please," Pacifica said. "Come on in. Uh—where's Mom?"

"Napping at the moment," Wellington said. "We'll be quiet."

He put Wendy, Dipper, and Mabel in the downstairs front parlor while Pacifica went upstairs. In a few moments he came back with a pitcher of lemonade, a tray of elegant finger sandwiches—cucumber, watercress, and Brie-and-apple—and said, "Thank you all. Mrs. Priscilla will sleep for perhaps an hour, and then I will see to it that she and Miss Pacifica have privacy. You are welcome to stay."

"No, we won't hang around 'cause it's going to be a family thing. But we'll say goodbye to Paz first, Welly," Mabel said. "Now, this is lemonade, right?"

"Just lemonade, Miss," Wellington said. "No tequila."

"This is great!" she said around a mouthful of sandwich. "What's in this?"

"Watercress, parsley, butter, and cream cheese, Miss," Wellington said.

"Dip, remember that!" Mabel said, reaching for four more.

Pacifica came downstairs in half an hour. "Do I look OK?" she asked. She was wearing her favorite colors—lavender sleeve dress, purple knit blazer, a white belt, blackout tights—but instead of the boots, she wore black flats. She had also brushed her hair and had put on make-up.

"You look fine," Wendy said.

"Beautiful, like always," Dipper assured her. He didn't add that she also looked thin and anxious. She must have known that herself.

"Why did you dye your hair, though?" Mabel asked.

"Kind of a disguise," Pacifica said, sitting down. She leaned forward, huddling. "Nobody looks twice at a waitress. She gave them a sad kind of smile. "I'm probably the only girl around with mousy brown hair and blonde roots!"

"You don't need to do that," Mabel told her. "Look, Paz, I don't know what you're going to work out here. I hope it goes OK. Lazy Susan says you can take off a couple days at the diner and not lose your job or anything, so stay here at least until Wednesday, all right? Sleep in your own bed. Ride your ponies. They miss you. Look, if you just have to get away, you don't have to work at the diner. Soos is gonna need people at the Shack, and he'd hire you like that, and there's even a room that you could have rent-free."

"I'd be ashamed to ask," Pacifica said. "I'm no good at jobs and things. It'd be taking charity."

"Paz," Dipper said, "know what charity is? It's love in action, that's all. Everybody needs it sometimes, but it never wears out. When the time comes around, you can give it to somebody else."

"That's some mature junk," Wendy said. "You know, everybody in the Falls went through a lot in Weirdmageddon. If you didn't notice, it created kind of a bond among everybody. You're not gonna impose on anyone. And nobody's gonna look down on you or laugh at you. That old guy out there in the stables—you should hear him talk about the Northwests."

Pacifica nodded and mumbled, "Thanks."

"Want us to hang around?" Mabel asked. "In case you need a ride?"

"No," Pacifica said slowly. "Mom's—kinda on my side. We ought to talk without anybody around."

"She needs your help," Mabel said. "Trust me on this. After you've had your talk, ask Welly how you can help your mom."

Pacifica nodded. "Thanks, guys."

"Hey," Mabel said, "Tomorrow I'll bring your car over. How's that? Let me have the keys, and Dipper can drive his car over so you can see it, and then he'll take me back home later."

"That would be great," Pacifica said. "I'll get the keys. Do you know where the Ballard House is on Lake Street?"

"I do," Wendy said. "It's easy to find, Mabes."

"It's in the lot back of the house," Pacifica said. "I'll call Mrs. Ballard so she won't sic Blubs on you for auto theft."

A few minutes later, Wellington came to the doorway. "Your mother is awake, Miss Pacifica. Speak quietly. She has a headache."

"I know what kind of headache she has," Pacifica said. "Thanks, guys. This may be a great big mistake—but I guess we have to take chances sometimes, huh? Go on and let me—let me go see my Mom."

Mabel got behind the steering wheel of her car and asked, "Did my brother treat you good, Helen?"

"Cars can't talk, girl," Wendy said. She was in shotgun position, Dipper relegated to the back seat.

"They speak to the heart," Mabel said, starting the engine. "I hope Paz will be OK."

"We all do," Dipper said. "And I hope Stan's having some luck on his end."

"Eh!" Mabel said as they started down the drive. "Of course he'll have luck! He's Stanley Pines!"

* * *

"Stanley Pines," Stan said loudly into the telephone. "Calling Vlad Raventree!"

"Just a minute, please."

It took about that much time, but then a querulous, elderly voice came on the line. "Hello, hello, who is this and what's so important you gotta call me away from my weekly poker game?"

"Vlad!" Stan said. "Stan Pines here. How you keepin'?"

"Stanley Pines!" the vampire's voice said, sounding pleased. "You shoulda said, I would've been here quick like a fox, but the hand I was holding, you coulda plotzed! But I bluffed the table and took the pot, thirty chips I got on a lousy pair of tens!"

"Man, you and me gotta hit a casino together some time," Stan said. "We'd clean up! I know places just ripe for some fleecin', full of suckers, pardon the expression."

"Heh!" Vlad said. "Pardon the expression, he says. Listen, first, vampires never suck. Never! That's propaganda spread by hack writers who just stoke the fires of prejudice! Phooey on the stokers! We lap, Stan, we lap. Licka-licka-licka-lick, like so. First the little bite, hardly hurts, then you get a nice flow going, then with the tongue. Now, suckers in a casino, these I like! You take a wise guy, thinks he knows cards—"

"Yeah, yeah," Stan agreed, chuckling. "Beige jacket, cream-colored shirt, open collar, gold chains, rings on the fingers, that kinda guy—"

"Exact! So smug, so hoo-hoo, I'm better than you, the schmuck is askin' for it, am I right?"

"You are so right! And then you baby him along, like a twelve-pound trout on an eight-pound test line—"

"From fishing I don't know, but I get the drift. And then he lays down his hand, boom! Flush in hearts, deuce, trey, four, five, and six—"

"And he reaches for the pot—"

"Ha! And then you lay down your nice royal flush—"

"In spades, Vlad! In spades!"

"Spades, perfect, and he goes all green and flattens out like one of them, what you call it, Macy's day balloons deflating—"

"And you take the money—"

"And run!"

The two poker aficionados shared a laugh. Vlad then said in a more serious voice, "Listen, Stan, I heard what Danny did to that nice little mortal girl. What can I say? You try to raise a kid right, you think he's made a good mature decision, then something like this. Oy, such tsuris! But whattaya gonna do, right? Everybody's gotta live his own life, or in the present case, unlife. But I am sorry. That Carmilla, she had no right. You know she's a hundred years old? I mean, human terms, she's eighteen, but real years a hundred, so much older than Danny. She should know better! But women, am I right?"

"Vlad, you are so right. Look, that's why I'm calling. You busy?"

"Eh, busy, I sign papers, I look at the stock market, I get indigestion, I go play poker. Busy, schmizzy. Seriously, what can I do for you, Stan?"

"OK," Stan said. "Here's the deal. Danny's girl, Pacifica—"

"Sweet kid. Real mixed up in the head, somebody should take a stick to that poppa of hers, but she's a doll, what Danny did to her, she did not deserve."

Stan nodded, finding himself in complete agreement. "Well, she took the breakup hard. You know how kids are, and top of that, she ain't had good luck in the romance department. But then, and I got no details on this, something happened between her and her dad that really sent her into a tailspin. She barely finished high school, but either he kicked her outa the house or she moved out, and now she's living hand to mouth."

"I happen to know from our discussion with Mr. Preston Northwest," Vlad said thoughtfully, "that the girl has a trust fund. She reject that?"

"Naw, but she don't get control of it until she's 21. Until then, Daddy holds the purse strings."

"Which he uses to tie his little girl down, I get it, I get it. Stan, why do kids have to be so meshuga?"

"They all are, ain't they?"

"You're telling me? Even the nice ones, am I right?"

"You are right."

Vlad said, "In this case, the nice girl is meshuga by heredity. This she gets from her poppa."

"Yeah, and you scared him straight that one time. Vlad, I know it's a lot to ask, but could you come out for another little talk with him?"

A long moment of silence, and Stan thought, he's not gonna do it. But then Vlad said, "Yes. Two things. First, Danny's my nephew, I love him like a son, but he should've thought twice about going back to the life and to Carmilla, who take it from me is gonna bring him nothing but trouble for the next few centuries, so yes, because it is a way of apologizing for what my own blood and flesh did to Pacifica. Second, yes, because I want to see you again. Even if you're what we used to call a puny mortal, you are a mensch, and confidentially I had a blast hangin' around somebody who knows what it's like to be in our generation. Here, the guys my age, nothing but putzes! A man could get sick. But I ain't flown that far in a few years—"

"Would ya mind flying commercial?" Stan asked.

"Commercial? You mean like an airliner?"

"Right."

Deep breath. "Truth to tell, Stan, I got a fear of them things. I mean, turn into a bat, rely on your own wings, sure it rains, you get wet, it hails you freeze your tail off, but you're in control, you know?"

"Vlad, I'm with ya. I hate flying, but I've done a hell of a lot of it—excuse the French—"

"Ha! Excuse the French? Stan, you should hear my old man talk for five minutes. Five minutes, twenty F bombs! So OK, yes, for you, yes, I will fly commercial."

"I'll cover your ticket."

"No, no, let me pay, I'd be imposing—"

"Vlad, I'm holding a quarter. I'm gonna flip it, you call. Ready?" Stan actually flipped a quarter. "Call!"

"Heads!"

"Sorry, Vlad, tails."

"For true?"

"Hand to God, Vlad, I'm lookin' at an eagle."

"OK, OK, it was an honest bet. So where'm I flying to?"

"When can you leave?"

"When can I leave, he says. Already, I'm out the door, my hat on my head. Seriously, give me fifteen minutes to pack and—uh, wait, which airport? I'm closest to O'Hare."

"O'Hare, fine. Mind flying at night?"

"Stan, this is a vampire you're talking to. Night is my favorite time."

"Tell ya what—I'll call the airlines and get you a flight leaving there at say six or later, and it'll come into Portland. I'll call back with the details, then you just gotta pick up your ticket at the airline counter. Or—you got a computer?"

"Of course I got a computer. Who these days doesn't have a computer? You want my email?"

"Please."

"It is grampavlad, all one word, at vurdalac dot com. Let me spell that for you, everybody gets it wrong, always the k they want to end it with, a k is no good, has to be a c."

In the end Stan carefully wrote down the information. Then he had Sheila help him shop for airline tickets online. And twenty minutes later, he called Vlad again with the flight number and forwarded the electronic ticket to the old vampire's email. "It's somethin' called business class, more legroom and all that. Hey, I forgot to ask," he said. "I put you down as Vladimir Raventree, is that the name on your ID?"

"Hah! My friend, that is no worry. My ID shows civilians whatever name I want them to see. It's like, what's his name in the old space movie, Opie John Kennopy, 'Droids? What droids? These, these are not droids. We can go on our way.' So I show my ID, if I say, 'This proves I am Benjamin Disraeli,' they see that name. The old mind cloud trick. Like a charm it works. I got it covered."

"Great. So you're flyin' out of O'Hare at six, you'll land in Portland about ten-thirty your time, I'll be there to meet you. I look forward to seein' you, and when this mess gets cleaned up, tell you what: you and me, we go hit Vegas, at least one night."

"Stan, for the air ticket and the hospitality I thank you, and you shouldn't tell my wife, but—" he lowered his voice to a whisper—"I'll take you up on the Vegas trip! See you tonight."

Stan hung up the phone, reached for the quarter—which really did show tails, and he wouldn't have lied about a thing like that, probably—and wondered how the kids were doing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Can You Come Out to Play?**

**(June 5, 2017)**

* * *

**5: Awkward!**

Pacifica clenched her hands so hard her fingers hurt. Her mom was in the upstairs sitting room, in her antique Queen Anne armchair—the one with the gracefully curved wooden arms, gleaming and dark with age, and the white brocade upholstery, a field of the tiniest little flowers you could imagine.

Pacifica could remember when she was a little girl, laying her cheek on the seat and losing herself in that wilderness of little needlepoint blossoms, red, yellow, blue, pink. Priscilla had told her once, "This chair came all the way from England on a boat to Philadelphia, and then all the way from Philadelphia to Sacramento, California, on a covered wagon, and then when my grandmother died, she gave this chair to me."

Pacifica, innocent at six, had said, "And one day you'll give it to me."

God, how that memory ached now. Her mother sat composed, wearing a quilted white robe, her feet in white slippers and resting on a low ottoman (pale blue, not white). Her left elbow rested on the chair arm, and her chin rested on her thumb. She sat statue-still, gazing out the window toward the green lawn and its flower beds. Priscilla turned her head and saw Pacifica in the doorway. "Baby," her lips said without sound.

"Oh, Mother. Mom. Mama!" Pacifica never remembered how, but suddenly she was on her knees, her head lying on her mother's thigh, her mother's hand smoothing her hair over and over. "I missed you," Pacifica said.

"My baby. My own baby," Priscilla crooned in a low, broken voice. "Are you really here?"

"I'm here, Mom. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I had to get out. I just had to get out."

"Sh-sh-shh. I'm so tired, sweetheart. I feel a hundred years old. What's wrong with your hair?"

"I dyed it," Pacifica said. "I wanted to—not be a Northwest anymore. Oh, Mom, it's all been so awful, and I'm not good at anything, and I didn't have any friends. Why didn't you come and get me?"

"If I had known," Priscilla said. "I think—I think I've been—ill, darling."

"Mom, you've been drunk!"

Again, Pacifica later lost her memory of how it happened, but somehow she and Priscilla were sitting on the floor, clutching each other, both of them crying. "It's Father," Pacifica said. "He's ruining our lives, Mom."

"Shh, don't say that." Priscilla put trembling fingers against Pacifica's lips. "Preston tries. He tries. He just never learned how. Blame me, Pacifica. I've been weak, and I've failed you. I think I'll die soon."

"No!" Pacifica said. "Mom, come and live with me. I don't have much, but I've got a job, and somehow we can live and—and not have to see Dad again!"

"I love him," Priscilla said. She looked miserable, but she repeated, "I do love Preston. He's changed. Money changes a man. If he could break free of that—he loves you, darling. He does, he does."

Pacifica shook her head. She didn't trust herself to speak.

"Darling," Priscilla said, "please, can we go to my bedroom? Let's get off this cold floor. Come, Pacifica." She rose like an old woman achy in her joints, but she held out a hand and helped her daughter stand up. The house had a master bedroom, with a king-sized bed, that Priscilla shared—sometimes—with Preston, but she had her own separate bedroom, a kind of retreat, at the rear of the house, with a bathroom between it and Pacifica's room.

"Let's lie down," Priscilla said. "The way you did when you were little and wanted a nap."

So they stretched out on the bed. Up close, Pacifica saw how ravaged her mother's face was. Miss Parsons had helped her with make-up and had brushed her hair, but the sagging circles under her eyes spoke eloquently of pain and loss. "You're not eating enough, Mom," Pacifica said, touching her cheek.

Priscilla grasped her hand and pulled Pacifica's palm against her cheek. "I've been wretched. Was it my fault, Pacifica?"

"No! Stop saying that. First it started when Dad got mad at me because Daniel broke up with me—"

"What happened, dear?" Priscilla asked. "You've never talked about it."

Pacifica sighed. "Daniel was having a hard time adjusting. When he was a vampire he only slept when he wanted to, and he hated that as a human he got tired every night. He said it was like dying once a day. And then he got scared of growing up, I guess. I mean, physically he got to be, like, twenty, but he was a scared kid inside. And then this girl he knew from years ago, Carmilla, showed up and I didn't know they were seeing each other, and then one day he was gone, and the next, and then he came to see me at midnight. Mom, he'd let her bite him on purpose. He went back to being a vampire. And she was there, and their teeth were sharp, and—Mom, they wanted me to join them! They wanted to make me their—lover. Or their pet. But I said no, and Daniel said that was that, and then they left. Just like that. Not a word since January. I felt like dirt."

"I'm so sorry," Priscilla said. "Love is hard sometimes. Pacifica, did you and he—I'm sorry, I have no right to ask."

"We didn't," Pacifica said dully. "One night when he got scared of growing old and dying, I tried—you know. To comfort him by . . . doing it. He couldn't. He said I smelled wrong to him—he could smell the living blood in my veins. And he couldn't . . . do it. That must have been right after Carmilla showed up. I guess she didn't stink of living blood."

"I'm sorry. That was awkward."

Pacifica admitted, "I'm not a virgin, Mom. Adam and me, a couple of times. Just a couple. He was—well, like you say, he was awkward and didn't really know what he was doing. It wasn't that good for either of us. And he liked me to do other things with him, you know. But we didn't click." She sighed. "I thought I'd take that to my grave before telling you. I'm sorry I let you down."

"You didn't," Priscilla said, stroking her hair. "I think you might have let yourself down."

"Anyway," Pacifica said, "the Raventrees hold stock in Dad's company now, not a majority share, but a good chunk, and Dad was furious with me for—this is what he said—for letting Daniel off the hook. Off the goddamn hook, Mom! Like I'm bait!"

"Don't swear, darling."

"Sorry, sorry, but when he got on my case about that, that was the first thing that made me so mad. But—there was worse. I—it was so bad. I can't tell you. Not now. Don't make me."

Her voice was shaking when Priscilla said, "I have to ask one thing. Did Preston—lay hands on you?"

"What?" Pacifica's blue eyes flew wide with shock. "No! Nothing like that. It was something else. But I can't—not now. May I stay here tonight?"

"Darling, this is your home. Stay forever."

"I don't think so. But it'll feel so good to sleep in my own bed and wake up and have my clothes here, and go out and ride the ponies—I don't know what I'm going to do. Something. But for now, I just want to have one night at home. Can we talk this out tomorrow? Please?"

"Yes, Pacifica."

"No booze, OK?" Pacifica asked. "Can you stop for one day?"

Priscilla didn't answer, but went to the door and pressed a button. Two minutes later, Wellington stood in the hallway. "Yes, Mrs. Northwest?"

"Wellington," she said, "I want you to take every bottle of alcohol in the house—even Preston's twelve-year-old Scotch—and pour it out. Every single one, do you understand?"

"I do."

"Will you do that for me?"

"At once, Madam."

"And in the future, if you see me with a bottle anywhere near me, or a drink in my hands, promise to take it away from me."

"If you wish, Madam."

"Thank you."

When he had gone, Priscilla closed the door and stood leaning against it. "That," she said, "was awkward."

* * *

**From the Journals of Dipper Pines: **_With all the junk going on, the UFO first and then this deal with Pacifica, you'd think that our Graunties wouldn't have time to think up ways of embarrassing us. But Sheila and Lorena asked me to come down to Ford's house—he's off at his Institute, wrapping up the spring term and planning for fall—for a chat._

_So there I am, sitting at the table with them. Now, I like both of them a lot. Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford couldn't have chosen better partners. And I thought we'd probably talk about a party for Stan and Ford because their birthday is coming up in like ten days._

_But—man, this is awkward!—they wanted to have The Talk with me!_

* * *

"Dipper," Sheila said, "you're a mature young man."

"High-school graduate and everything!" Dipper said, smiling.

Lorena passed him a plate of cookies, her oatmeal raisin comfort food. "We don't want to pry, but Stanley suggested that you might have some questions that we could answer."

"About . . . what?" Dipper asked, though his suspicions were stirring.

"About the state of matrimony," said Lorena.

"The physical part," Sheila said.

"Oh, gosh," Dipper said. "Uh—sorry." He picked up the cookie that had somehow exploded into crumbs in his grasp. "I'll get a dustpan and—"

"In a minute," Sheila said firmly. "Don't be embarrassed. This is family. Stan has the impression that Alex is a little, um, hands-off as a father, and he also thinks that Wanda might be reluctant to talk to you about it, but seriously, Dipper—don't worry about the crumbs, we'll get them!—seriously, you need to know a few things."

"I, Grunkle Stan has this book, uh, awkward and sweaty, I mean that's kind of the title, see, and it's about, you know, sex and stuff," Dipper said, feeling about as suave as those monkeys in the zoo who seem to mate only when they have an audience of fourth-graders. "He, uh, read it to Mabel and I read it for myself. So. I kind of know."

Lorena said understandingly, "This is just among ourselves, Dipper. We won't tell anyone else at all. Not your parents."

"Not even Stan and Ford," Sheila said. "It's completely natural, Dipper. Oh, I know you've probably heard a lot of locker-room talk."

"Well, yeah," Dipper agreed. "But you can't pay any attention to that. I know that."

Lorena said, "They probably told you that a girl can't get pregnant her first time."

"That's not true," Sheila said.

"I know, I know!" Dipper said. "Look, this is nice of you and all, but I'm not sure I need it."

Lorena, who seemed to be the good cop, asked gently, "Are you and Wendy having relations?"

Dipper's face felt numb, as if he'd been to a dentist who'd been over-enthusiastic with the Novocain. "No. Um. Not . . . exactly."

"Are you a virgin?" Sheila asked.

"Uh-huh," he heard himself say.

"Well, good for you," Lorena told him.

"How about Wendy?" Sheila asked.

"How 'bout me what?" Wendy said, coming right through the door. "Dip, man, you get choked? Your face is purple!"

"It's nothing," Dipper said, but realized the words weren't coming out. Just turkey sounds.

Wendy came and thumped his back. "Cough it up, man! Get up, I know the Heimlich!"

"We embarrassed him," Sheila said. "We asked if you two were virgins."

"That all?" Wendy asked. She hooked a chair over with her foot and sat beside Dipper. "We both are virgins," she said. "Pass me a cookie?"

"Well, dear," Lorena said, holding the plate so Wendy could take a cookie, "we didn't know how much you two knew about, um—"

"Birds and bees?" Wendy asked.

"Sex," Sheila said bluntly.

"Mm, enough, I guess," Wendy said. "I mean, we know what goes where and all. And I got a feeling the rest of it will come naturally."

"You have been affectionate with each other, though, haven't you?" Lorena asked.

"Oh, yeah, big time!" Wendy said. "Don't tell Mr. and Mrs. Pines any of this—"

"Wendy—?" Dipper squeaked.

Sheila said, "We won't, or Stan and Ford either."

"And especially not Mabel," promised Lorena. "You have our word."

"OK," Wendy said cheerfully. "We—I guess you guys would call it necking, we necked—"

"How old do you think we are?" Sheila asked, chuckling.

"Well, I pick up slang from Dad, you know. Anyway, Dip and me have, um, well, we know what we look like naked, OK? And we've kissed and we've cuddled and so on. And we haven't gone all the way, technically, but we've made each other feel real good. You know, Dipper can do that to me with a foot rub?"

"Urk," observed Dipper.

"No joke?" Sheila asked, looking interested.

"Straight up. I don't know if it's his skill, or some kink of mine, or whatever, but if he massages my feet for ten minutes, man, I am over the moon! I tried to do it to myself, but I can't, so I guess Dipper has the magic touch—"

"Wu wu," said Dipper.

"And I know how to push Dip's buttons, too. We're really and truly holding off the final touchdown, you might call it, for our wedding night, but I think we'll make out great. See what I did there?"

"Dipper," Lorena said calmly, "We've embarrassed you. I'm sorry."

"No, no. No. I mean, no. No," Dipper said.

"That's kind of you, but you just ate a napkin instead of the cookie."

"Uh-huh. Uh. Did I?"

"Listen, why don't you run along? Go for a run or something," Sheila said. "We want to have some girl talk with Wendy."

"Fine with me," Wendy said. "Come on, Dip, they're concerned. It's just a family matter."

So was knocking off Sollozzo and McCluskey over their veal scaloppini, but Michael Corleone probably felt a little bit of embarrassment after. Dipper fled, ashamed of himself but unable to stay. He didn't run, but walked down the Mystery Trail as far as the bonfire clearing, where he sat on a log and wondered if everyone would mind if he and Wendy, after marriage, moved maybe to Mongolia or someplace.

What if the day after the wedding night, Sheila should ask cheerfully, "How'd he measure up, Wendy?"

Well, Dipper thought, at least he wouldn't have to worry about the fallout from that. He'd be dead. From embarrassment.

"Dipper."

Jeff the Gnome, of course. "Hi," Dipper said.

"Give me a hand up?"

Dipper helped him scramble up onto the log. "Thanks," the Gnome said. "So . . . you and Wendy are lighting the fire this summer, huh?"

"Excuse me, what?"

"Oh. Sorry. When a Gnome marries another Gnome, they lay a fire in the fireplace of one or the other's family, depending on whose place the bonding ceremony is held, or they build a campfire, and together they light it. That symbolizes the beginning of their life together. It's not the marriage ceremony, see, but it's kind of the way at the end of the real ceremony, they say, 'Ha-cha-cha, let's get to work!'"

"I don't want to talk about it," Dipper said.

"I guess humans don't do that," Jeff mused. "Well. Reason I brought it up, I have an announcement. I am engaged, too!"

To a badger, or to a woodpecker? The questions lit on the top of Dipper's mind, but he shooed them away and instead said, "Congratulations to you, uh, both."

"Cute Gnome girl," said Jeff. "I don't know if you know her, Gemula, her dad's kind of a stubborn Feral, but he's come around 'cause we helped them out last year when their tunnels got flooded and then again when the Crawlspace blew out and caused a lot of tunnel collapses. Got more of the Ferals coming up from underground this year than we have civilized Gnomes going down. I think the new government's working pretty well, that's why, and of course up in the trees, we're becoming businessGnomes. So. Gemula's really pretty, I'll introduce you."

"As long as you don't want to talk about mating rituals," Dipper said.

"Huh? You're a human! And we're Gnomes. No, of course not. That," said Jeff, "would be awkward!"

"Tell me about it," said Dipper.

"Oh, well, if you're really interested, on a Gnome's wedding night, the couple needs a pair of roller skates, a plucked chicken, preferably dead, some butter—where are you going?"

"Congratulations!" Dipper yelled over his shoulder. He'd apparently decided on taking that run after all.


	6. Chapter 6

**Can You Come out to Play?**

**(June 5-6, 2017)**

* * *

**6: Detoxing**

Dr. le Fievre did not, as a rule, make house calls, but then rules were meant to be broken, after all, and no one in Gravity Falls turned down a request from the Northwest family. Late on Monday afternoon, he came downstairs and found Pacifica waiting in the living room. Wellington—whom Pacifica had asked to sit, but who had politely declined—stood near her.

"How is Mom?" Pacifica asked.

Dr. le Fievre set down his medical kit—first time he'd carried it since his intern days—and said, "Not good, but not terrible. May we talk?"

"Sit, please," Pacifica said. Dr. le Fievre took the armchair across from her.

"Ah—this may be confidential information—" he began.

Pacifica said, "Mr. Wellington has been with our family longer than I've been alive. We all trust him. Go ahead. Be honest."

"All right," le Fievre said. He was a young man for a doctor, not exactly new to the Valley, but he was still learning its ways. Six years ago, fresh out of med school and his internship, he would have bet the farm that he would never once in all his life treat a Gnome, but treat them he had. They had paid him in mushrooms, which Stan Pines told him was their most treasured commodity. He had turned around and donated the mushrooms to the Society for the Aid of Feral Gnomes. The initials don't spell out anything, don't bother.

So he simply nodded. "How old are you, Pacifica?" he asked.

"Eighteen. Just recently, but eighteen," she said. "Why?"

"Well, there may be some legal matters involved. How long has Mrs. Northwest been drinking heavily?"

Pacifica glanced at Wellington. He said, "Sir, she had been sober for four full years and a bit, and then she began to drink again in January of this year. Not to excess at first. But since March, she has had a serious problem."

"About what I thought," the young doctor said. "I don't think there's permanent damage yet to the liver. She's heading that way, though. She says there's no alcohol in the house now, is that correct?"

"None, sir," Wellington said. "I am certain of that."

"She hasn't hidden away any—?"

"No, sir. Again, I am certain."

"All right," le Fievre said. "Pacifica, the next days are going to be hard. She'll be in a state of withdrawal. I don't think it will reach the level of hallucinations, but she'll feel very, very sick, all right? I'd recommend that she spend some time in our clinic, maybe two or three nights, but in this case I don't think that would be appropriate. She'll be more comfortable here at home, with you near her."

He took out a prescription pad and scribbled on it. "This is for Librium. It's chlordiazepoxide, and I think your mother will need it. It will reduce her anxiety and very likely make her sleepy. She needs rest, she needs plenty of liquids—at least six eight-ounce glasses of water a day, to begin with. She won't be very hungry for the next day or two, but get her to eat. Oatmeal for breakfast, or a soft-boiled egg and toast, clear soups or fruit at mid-day, and then protein in the evening, chicken or fish, nothing fried. If she craves any food, let her have it. Would you like a full-time nurse on the premises?"

"Do we need one?" Pacifica asked.

"Not if you and the young lady who was helping your mouther upstairs—Miss Parsons? Miss Parsons can attend to Mrs. Northwest. Get a blood pressure monitor and please record her vital signs once an hour: BP, pulse rate, temperature. This isn't to alarm you, but I do want to be watchful. I'll check in tomorrow at—" he glanced at his watch—"five-thirty p.m. Any questions?"

"Will she be all right?" Pacifica asked.

"I think she can be," le Fievre said. "It depends on how badly she wants to stay sober. Once she's feeling better and is clearer in her mind, I'll want to give her another prescription, one that will give her an aversion to alcohol. And we'll taper off the Librium. It's only for the acute phase. Can you get this filled this afternoon?"

"I'll take it in, Miss," Wellington said.

The young doctor nodded. "Very good. Someone's always on duty at the clinic, so call if you need anything or if Mrs. Northwest seems to be in any distress at all. Begin the Librium tonight before bedtime."

"I shall write a check for you from the household fund," Wellington said.

"No need, the office will bill you."

"I'll walk you out," Pacifica said. On the way, she asked, "Would Mom do better away from my father?"

"That's not for me to say," the doctor told her gently. "Wait a week, and then ask her. I'm sorry you're having these troubles. Family rifts can be devastating. Are you all right yourself?"

"I'm numb," Pacifica confessed. "But I can cope. Father will be back on Wednesday. I've got to get it together for that. We—Mom, him, and I—we've got go thrash some things out. I'm not looking forward to it."

"Call me if you need anything else," the doctor said, getting into his car. It was not, Pacifica noted, a particularly new car. In fact, it was a nearly ten-year-old Prius, dented and scraped here and there.

Leaning out the driver's window, he said, as if reading her mind, "I don't like to spend money on show. This gets me around town, and that's all I ask. What?"

"I just realized," she said, "that in French your name means 'Johnny Fever.'"

He put on sunglasses and chuckled. "Johnny Fever! Now, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. A long time!" He waved, started the car, and pulled around the circular drive.

Inside, Wellington said, "I've telephoned the pharmacy. I'll take Mrs. Northwest's automobile, with your permission, and pick up the prescription. Do you need anything else?"

"No. Wait, yes. A blood-pressure kit—"

"We have one, Miss Pacifica. I've had it put in Mrs. Northwest's top drawer in the bathroom. Anything else?"

"Well-before you go, could you call the pool service?"

"Of course," Wellington said.

"Uh—do we have money to pay them?"

"Plenty of money, Miss, in the household fund. That is not a problem."

"Then do it. No sense in having a pool if it's too dirty to use. Thank you, Wellington."

"I'm only doing my duty, Miss Pacifica."

"Oh, no," she said, taking his hand. "Above and beyond, Wellington. I'll be up in Mom's room when you get back. She needs her medicine before bedtime, the doctor said."

"I shall be back within a few minutes," Wellington said with a smile.

Upstairs, Mrs. Northwest lay dozing. Pacifica went down the hall to her own room, a foreign country now, almost. With her door and her mother's door open, in case Priscilla should wake and call for her, Pacifica phoned Mabel.

"How's it going?" Mabel asked.

"We're getting by," Pacifica said. "I'm way scared about Wednesday, when Dad comes home, though. The doctor's seen Mom, and she needs some treatment, but he thinks she'll be OK. Wellington's helping a lot."

"He's a good guy, Welly. I like him," Mabel said, ignoring the fact that she could find something to like even if dealing with a horror from beyond the bounds of Time and Space. "You need me to come out?"

"I don't think so. I want to think things through. For myself, for once. But thanks, Mabel."

"I'll come if you need me. Or call if you need to blow off steam. Two ears, no waiting, that's me! Hey, remember we're in your corner, Pacifica. We got your back. Whatever happens."

"Don't hang up yet," Pacifica asked. "I don't want to talk, don't know what to say. I just—I need someone just to wait, so if I get scared or—it gets bad—so I'll have someone. Wellington will be back soon, I won't tie you up—"

"It's OK," Mabel said. "It's OK. This is what friends are for."

* * *

Then on Tuesday, Soos gave them the day off—it was a dull, overcast day, with gusty winds, and he said that bad weather on the coast had grounded a couple of tour buses. So Mabel and Teek checked in with Pacifica, heard that all was well, and they went into town.

Dipper and Wendy had breakfast, waited until it was obvious it would be a slow sales day, and then went out for a drive to hold an inquest on Lorena's and Sheila's attempt to do them a good turn. They wound up at the lake, sitting on the end of the pier behind the ranger's station, watching the water whip up into miniature whitecaps. If it started to rain, they'd get drenched, but the rain held off, and the clouds and the wind gave them privacy.

"Come on, man," Wendy said, laughing. "It's not that embarrassing!"

"I don't know," Dipper told her. "I was pretty embarrassed."

Wendy leaned against him and flattened a hand against her hair to keep it from whipping around. "Cut Lorena and Sheila some slack, Dipper. They really mean well, but they never had kids of their own, so—you know. But Lorena's been married, and Sheila's been . . . around, so they did their best with what they know. They're trying, man. And at least they didn't go full-out euphemistic on us and all."

"Yeah, I suppose they really were trying to make things easier for us. In their own weird way. Seriously, though, you weren't offended or anything?"

"No," Wendy said. "Hey, you know what? Even if I'd told them you and me were ruttin' away like a hutch of crazy rabbits, they'd be OK with that. Because they accept you and they believe you can make your own decisions, and they'll be good decisions."

"I guess so," Dipper said. "Uh, after I left they didn't discuss, you know—me or anything?"

"Oh, yeah they did!" Wendy said. "They want us to get together and let them watch—breathe, Dipper! Don't forget to breathe—watch you give me a foot massage."

"I'm not sure I could even do that—now!" Dipper said.

"Well, it's a long time to your birthday. Remember when we were twelve—not at the same time, but one time for each of us, I mean—and at the end of school, the summer stretched off like the Pacific Ocean, and you couldn't even see the far side of it?"

"I'm glad this summer's not going to pass like that," Dipper said. "I'm just hoping people will stop being so nosy before long."

"Might as well wish that they'd stop being people. So—what's the deal today? If we stay out in this, I'll probably get windburn or something."

"Let's go back to the Shack," Dipper said. "I've got something to do today."

He drove them back—Wendy could have driven them in her Dart, but she told Dipper he needed to get practice driving, because the whole time they'd had Helen Wheels, Mabel had hogged the driving time.

Under the shelter of the forest, the Shack was in a mostly gust-free zone, and the sun began to peek through breaking clouds. No rain on the menu, apparently. Abuelita was outside with the children—she sat on the side lawn as they played—and after stopping to say hi and giving Little Soos and Harmony piggy-back rides, Dipper led Wendy inside. Only Melody and Soos in the gift shop, no tourists yet, so Dipper and Wendy said hi and then went up to his room, where on the floor some video equipment was laid out.

"What's up?" Wendy asked.

"Well, I promised the Ghost Harassers that I'd try to send them some footage of the Invisible Wizard," Dipper said. "So if you'll be my lovely assistant—"

"Oh, man, you're givin' me Mabel's job!"

"Well, she and Teek are off someplace," Dipper said. "If you don't want to do it, though—"

"No, glad to do it. Only what do I do?"

Dipper held up a bank of six lightbulbs on a frame attached to a metal handle. "Hold these up. Are they too heavy?"

Wendy tried them out. "No way. Not even close. Now what?"

"Let's walk through it. I'm gonna focus the digital movie camera on the closet door and do a little narration. I want you to hold the lights steady on the door. I'll open it and take like fifteen seconds of footage, then stop the camera and leave the door open. You don't have to turn off the lights. Then I'm going to click this gizmo over the camera lens—like this—and narrate, narrate, narrate, and open the door for another few seconds of recording."

"Sounds easy enough," Wendy said.

"Want to do a run-through?"

"Nah," Wendy said. "Let's just do it. Say when."

Dipper muttered to himself, "Camera, check, remove the filter until time for the big reveal, got it, angles OK. All right, turn on the lights and hold them steady. If you see any movement or anything, tell me."

"Gotcha, chief," Wendy said. "Go for it, dude."

Dipper turned on the camera, waited a couple of seconds, and then said, "Hello, fans of the Ghost Harassers. I am Dipper Pines, great-nephew of the owner of the Mystery Shack. This is an upstairs closet. Let me open it—there—and as you can see, there's very little in it—a rack with a couple of empty coat hangers, an old umbrella leaning in the corner. But this is the closet that, some say, is haunted. You see what it looks like in the ordinary light of day, but in a second we'll try it with a special filter on, sensitive to paranormal frequencies."

He turned off the camera, but said, "You're doing great, Wendy. Just like that. OK, got this ready . . . three, two, one—"

Dipper had not latched the door. It stood barely ajar. "Now," he said, "I've put a special paranormal filter on the camera. Let's take another look at the empty closet." He pulled the door open and stepped back. "I can see it in my viewfinder," he said. "Hey! Invisible Wizard! Right here! As you can see, it does not react. Now, some of you may think this is trick photography. I'm going to remove the filter—there! And the invisible creature is gone. And that is the Invisible Wizard of the Mystery Shack!"

He turned off the camera. "You can kill the lights, Wen. Was that good?"

"Worked for me," she said.

But they shot the same sequence three times, just to be certain. From there they went down into the lab level, where Ford had given Dipper permission to use one of the computers. He switched it on, pulled up a video editing program, and cut the footage he had down to a fast sixty seconds. He played that for Wendy. "Still looks good, Dip," she said. "You sending this to the show guys?"

"Yes. It's probably too late, because the Gravity Falls show will be out on the fifteenth, but here goes." He zipped the file, attached it to an email, and sent it to both stars of the Ghost Harassers show. "They might be able to find a spot for it," he said. "I wish the filter made the wizard show up more clearly."

"Yeah, kinda looks like a haystack made of purple fog," Wendy agreed. With the filter in place, the video showed a slowly moving, vaguely pulsating lumpish thing that if you had a certain kind of imagination did resemble a very fat wizard in billowy robes, wearing a conical cap and weakly waving a wand. However, it revealed no features whatever and was transparent—you could see one of the clothes hangers clearly through the dim, transparent "hat."

"They probably can't use it," Dipper said. "But nothing ventured, nothing gained."

"You fulfilled your promise," Wendy said. Now—wanna fool around?"

"Love to, but we can't go anywhere. Mabel made me promise to hang close to the Shack in case Paz calls for help. Another day?"

"Tomorrow," Wendy suggested, "is another day."

"But I must go and fight for the Confederacy, Miss Scarlett," Dipper said.

"Fiddle," Wendy said, coming up close to him, "dee," and they were kissing and then, licking her lips, she finished, "dee."

* * *

They had not moved out of the lab or got beyond the murmuring, kissy phase when Dipper's phone rang—the generic ringtone, which he supposed was Pacifica. He answered it. "Hello?"

"Dipper Pines?" The voice was male and familiar.

"Speaking," he said.

"Hi, Dipper. This is Craig Grantley. Thanks for the footage, man! Can you give me some info on it?"

"S-sure," Dipper said, buttoning his shirt. "What do you need?"

"First, identify the site. It's in the Mystery House, correct?"'

"Mystery Shack," Dipper said. "Not house, but shack. Yeah, it's up in the attic level of the Shack."

"When was your footage taken?"

"Today, um, about, well, not quite, an hour ago."

"Crew names?"

"Me and Wendy Corduroy. You might not—"

"Tall redhead? Cool! We've got some footage of her we can cut in as an intro. Who did the cinematography?"

"That was me."

"You shot the video."

"Right. And Wendy held the lights and was my backup."

"Got ya. Does this thing ever make a noise, or come out?"

"Never has as long as I've known the place," Dipper said. "And this is my fifth summer up here. I sleep in the attic, in the same room as the closet."

"Pines, so you're—yeah, I remember. You're the grandson of the guy who owns the place. That hilarious dude in the fez."

"Stanley Pines," Dipper said. "My great-uncle, not my grandfather."

"Great . . . uncle . . . Stanley," Craig said, and Dipper realized he was writing this down. "OK, doesn't come out of the closet, no noises—have you ever seen it appear clearer?"

"No. My other great-uncle says he got one glimpse of it under special conditions. He doesn't think it's a ghost. Not even a person. He thinks it might be a semi-sentient trans-dimensional fungus. But he can't be sure."

"Well, on the show we're definitely gonna call it a ghost," Craig said. "Hey, can you put me in touch with Wendy?"

"Right here," Dipper said, handing her the phone.

"Hi. Speaking. Yeah, man, I remember when you and your crew came and filmed here. What? I guess I could. Well, I'm not an actress, but that sounds easy enough. Need Dipper to film me? Wait, here he is again."

Dipper took the phone. Craig explained what he wanted. "Don't need the visuals, just a good clear voice recording. You have a decent microphone?"

"My uncle has—" Dipper tilted his head to read the logo on the fat microphone—"a Blue Yeti."

"Fantastic. Look, give me your email and in fifteen minutes I'll send you a line of dialogue. Have Wendy read it. Record it say five different times, for insurance, and shoot the file back to us. MP4, for preference, but MP3 will do."

"Got it," Dipper said.

"Stand by!"

In less than fifteen minutes, the email came in, Dipper printed it out, and he read it with raised eyebrows. "Here's your lines," he said.

Wendy read them. "OK, I guess I can sound convincing for this little bit. Want to record them here?"

They tested, and down in the quiet lab they could record without any echo, so they went for it. Wendy read it aloud a couple of times, and then Dipper set up the recording program. He said, "Wendy Corduroy, closet intro, take one. In three, two, one . . . ."

Wendy paused for a beat and then read: "Strange things do go on in the Mystery Shack, Craig. Take for instance the time my friend Dipper Pines and I cornered something in an attic closet. It happened like this."

Dipper played it back. "I sound dorky," "Wendy said.

"No, everybody thinks that about their voice. It's cool. This time how about making it sound a little spooky, and trail off on the last couple words."

She overdid it that time, and they both laughed over the result. "Woo, move over, Trixandra!" Wendy said of her own performance. "Chadley has a new leading lady. Let me pull it back. Ready when you are."

They did five different takes, with varying inflections, and then Dipper sent the files back to Craig, who called about five minutes later. "Great job, guys," he said once Dipper had him on speaker. "What we're gonna do, we've got some footage of Wendy in the gift shop, with over-the-shoulder shots, so at one point you see her from behind, saying something, and the camera's looking over her shoulder at Jasyn, who's looking serious and nodding. We're gonna clip the audio from that and put this in instead, and that'll be a great lead-in to the attic footage. We'll have to cut about a minute from somewhere else, but you can always tighten a show like ours up. What I'm gonna do, I'm gonna shoot you two each a memo of agreement for your contributions to the show. Also a standard release form. Sign 'em and fax 'em back and we'll cut you a couple of checks. Don't plan on buying a new car, 'cause they're a hundred-fifty each, but you'll get a little credit at the end of the episode. This is so cool! Get those memos and releases signed and fax them back to me before tomorrow morning, OK?"

"Sure, we can do that," Dipper said.

When he rang off, he said, "My life-long dream has come true! My voice is gonna be on my all-time favorite show—with my beautiful fiancée on camera! Wanna kiss?"

Wendy put the back of her hand to her forehead and struck a dramatic pose. "Have your people call my people," she said. "Oh, wait. I don't have people. Yeah, let's go up to your room and fool around some."

"I'm going to keep the closet door closed, though," Dipper said. "Maybe I might be talked into doing it for my aunts, but I am not letting whatever's in that closet watch me give you a foot massage."

"Race you ups the stairs!" Wendy said.

* * *

Mrs. Northwest woke up around eleven that morning, calling tremulously for Pacifica. Pacifica hurried in. "I'm here, Mom."

Relief transfigured Priscilla's worn face. "I thought maybe I'd dreamed it," she murmured. "I want to get out of bed."

Pacifica helped her up, got her into her quilted gown and slippers, and brushed her hair. "My hands are so shaky," Priscilla said. But, Pacifica noticed, she did not ask for a drink.

Priscilla felt well enough to go downstairs, the cook prepared a nourishing but light breakfast—a soft-boiled egg, a few ounces of orange juice, whole-wheat toast with a little marmalade spread on it, and a cup of tea.

Pacifica sat beside her mom, who ate the meal without seeming to notice particularly the taste or appeal. Pacifica was ravenous and had unsweetened cereal with strawberries and blueberries cut into it, with two slices of toast and a glass of orange juice. When her mom had finished, Pacifica gave her a green-and-yellow capsule and a full glass of water. "Here, Mom. Help you get well," she said.

"This makes me sleepy," Mrs. Northwest complained. But she took the five-mg capsule without resisting. "I must have been terrible to everyone," she said.

"No, Mom. Wellington says you kept to yourself. He watched out for you when you weren't—well."

"When I was drinking," Priscilla said. "What's that noise?"

"The pool company sent a man over. He's vacuuming? I guess not. Filtering and treating the water and cleaning the pool up."

"I forgot to do that."

"It's not a big deal," Pacifica said. "I wasn't here to remind you."

"Don't leave again," Priscilla said softly. "I don't want to pressure you, but please. Please don't leave again."

"I'm not planning on it," Pacifica said. "Not without you, anyway."

"Everything is so foggy in my memory," Priscilla told her. "Did I hear you say you were working as a waitress?"

"Yes. At Greasy's Diner. I had to. Dad froze my checking account and my credit card."

Priscilla thought that over. Then she said, "Ask Wellington to step in, please."

Pacifica didn't need to go far to find the butler—he always hovered nearby—and he came into the breakfast nook. "You wanted me, Madam?"

"Yes. What day is today?"

"Tuesday, Madam."

"Good. Call Andrew Thayers. Ask him to come over this afternoon, please."

"Certainly, Madam. If he asks about the reason—"

"Tell him," Priscilla said firmly, "I want him to change my will."

Pacifica knew Thayer was one of the Northwest family's lawyers. She started to ask the obvious question, but Priscilla said, "Later, please. At the moment I want to go sit on the back porch and watch them clean the pool. It's a kind of punishment, Pacifica. When you leave a mess, if you can't clean it yourself, as penance you should watch what others go through, cleaning up after you.

Speaking of which, Pacifica got up to gather the breakfast dishes—but her gaze met an empty table. Wellington, the ever efficient, had tidied up with the poise and polish of an expert magician pulling off his favorite trick.


	7. Chapter 7

**Can You Come out to Play?**

**(June 6, 2017)**

* * *

**7: D-Day Minus One**

"You got a real nice house here, Stan. Real nice. Big enough to spread your wings in, you know what I mean? The younger generation, it's all downsizing, it's all teeny-tiny house, pfui! You might as well live in a coffin!"

"Thanks, Vlad," Stan Pines said. "So we got to talking on the way back from the airport, I forgot to ask—how was the flight?"

"Meh, you know, grab onto both armrests, don't let go for three-four hours. The nice lady attendant, she comes up and says 'You're pale, sir. Do you need a relief bag?' You know what that is? A bag, you puke into it, right there in front of everybody!"

"I know what they are," Stan said. "My niece Mabel is not a good flyer. But she does enjoy upchuckin' into those bags!"

"She should live long and have a great time, I don't begrudge. But it's undignified for a gentleman of my years. Plus, not many people know this Stan, this is like a trade secret, me to you, all right? Vampires do not throw up."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. Something to do with the digestive system, I don't know what. I mean, a person gets nauseous, vampires too, only we gotta just bear with it."

"Ride it out," Stan said. He had heard Dipper say that once.

"Right, good choice of words, ride it out. I like that. That I will have to remember, that ride it out. Beautiful scenery!"

"Thanks. That's one reason we had the houses built back in here. Now, right up there to our left, you see that roof over the trees? That's the Mystery Shack. But behind us here, for miles and miles, it's just forests and hills and lakes and rivers. And then you get to the bluffs, and then the mountains. On a clear day, it's gorgeous. Not so much today, with the clouds."

"I like clouds," Vlad said. "Good cover if a family decides to fly south, say, go to Miami, catch some sun. That's another lie they tell about vampires, you know. Sun—doesn't hurt us. We don't tan, but we don't burn, so I figure, even trade. But I'll admit, you get to be as old as me, vampire, whatever, good warm sun feels nice on the old bones. Say, what is Vegas like these days? I was trying to count up, I don't think I've ben to Vegas since, my math is right, 1953. Long time. Lots of changes, I bet."

"Lots of 'em," Stan agreed. "Did you enjoy your trip to Vegas back in the frantic Fifties? Gambling, was it?"

"Clean-up," Vlad said. "Strictly business. There was this, excuse the expression, bloodbath at a place called, let me see, the Victory Motel? Yeah, I think. Lots of people got dead quick, and they needed clean-up, so I took a crew, we did what we do. The coroners and what not got there, they didn't notice the bodies were missing some plasma, you know. This, I gotta explain, this was twenty, twenty-five years before the vampires swore off human blood. At least here in America. I don't miss it. Especially Vegas blood, I mean, you take a little nosh, next thing you got a buzz in your head and you're seeing elephants and technicolor monkeys. All the drugs and crap. Anyway, here I am, running on at the mouth. What's on our schedule?"

"Well, Sheila's got us some breakfast on the patio—you can eat, right?"

"Oh, sure, sure, but food, it goes right through. It's OK, I like the taste of food."

"So let's go have brunch."

At the table, Vlad threw his hands up in the air. "Dear lady!" he said in a tone of delight. "Stan, you are lucky you married this charmer, because if you hadn't, I would steal her away. I can't believe this. Blood sausage! Oy, this takes me back to the old world!"

"I hope I cooked it right," Sheila said. "It's all-beef, no pork. Extra rare, Stan said. Is that the way you like it?"

"Oh, positive! I'll just take a little taste, let me see—ahhhh! In the old country, my people used to say 'An kupf, en flore kelicht.' I crown you with flowers, dear lady. This—this makes me think of my old Maman, rest her sweet soul."

"Did she pass away in the old country?" Stan asked.

"Yeah, sad, sad. I mean, she was elderly, you know, way up there in years even when I was a little nibbluker, but at least she went quick. Heart trouble." Which was true. A stake ramming through a heart can cause lots of trouble, very quickly.

They lingered over the late meal, Vlad apologizing for pigging out on the sausages—though Sheila and Stan didn't mind that, because they weren't tempted—and rhapsodizing over the coffee. "Coffee like this, you can't get in Chicago," he said. "Seattle, am I right?"

"Close," Sheila said. "Portland. It's a little coffee place that Dipper and Wendy discovered when they went engagement ring shopping."

"Ah, I remember. Beautiful redhead, long hair, and your nephew. Great nephew? Whatever. Listen, this crazy world, I tell you, I am so glad that some young people find their share of happiness. Speaking of which—what can we learn about this trouble of the little beautiful blonde?"

"Come with me," Stan said.

* * *

By then Mabel and Teek had returned to the Shack, Wendy and Dipper had come downstairs looking happily frazzled, and Soos agreeably let them gather around the dining-room table to confer.

Mabel took the lead, telling them what she had found out about Pacifica's problems—not all that much, really. But Vlad said, "It's all right, it's OK. I did some therapy with her before, you remember?" He glanced around to make sure Soos or Melody or the kids weren't in earshot, and said, "The time I deglamourized her when she thought maybe she was a vampire. Lot of troubles in that girl's poor heart, let me tell you. But she'll confide in me. I'm old Doctor Raventree, she'll tell everything to me, and I'll sort it out and leave her with a happy smile. And the girl's mother, her I don't remember."

Stan told what he knew of the Northwest family's history—Preston, the son of a ruthless financier, Priscilla, a former beauty queen, whirlwind romance, marriage, and then the tragic passing of Preston's father (a bear was involved, and Preston hunted it down, shot it, and had it stuffed and mounted in the Manor, which was fine until the night when it came to life and started lurching around drooling blood).

Vlad nodded. "I remember, I remember. Not that specific occasion, but the kinds of things that happen here. Remember, we Raventrees dwelled in the Valley for many years. We were all the time running into such fershlugginer creatures like you wouldn't believe. _We_ didn't believe them! And we were vampires! Eyeballs that flew, little pointy-hat guys, bulls what walked like men, I could go on. Anyway, the bit about the bear, this is easy to believe. What is not so easy is what Pacifica told me. Her Poppa trained her to do what he said with a bell?"

"That's true," Dipper said. "I saw it. Pacifica would start to do something harmless that she just wanted to do and Preston was all, 'Ah-ah!' and he rang the bell, and Pacifica just shrank. Like she was terrified."

"But then later," Mabel said, "she rebelled. She put garbage in her hair for her family photograph!"

"Of such small steps are great revolutions forged!" Vlad said. "Stalin said that."

"Joseph Stalin?" asked Stan.

"Who's that? Nah, I mean Irving Stalin, used to run a carousel on Coney Island, nice guy. He was always saying stuff like that. Where do the old friends go? A real smartass, but a mensch, you know what I mean?"

"Dude," Wendy said, "do you think you could use your hypnotism on—"

"Tsha, tsha!" Vlad said, holding up a finger. "Let me right there say I should correct you, Wendy darling. Not hypnotism. Mesmerism we call it. Some people call it animal magnetism, but we call it mesmerism. Difference is, a hypnotist gets paid, a mesmerist is an artist."

"OK," Wendy said, smiling at him, "can you use your mesmerism to see what Priscilla is thinking and hiding?"

"Can, sure. Will, maybe, who knows. It's a personal, private thing, you know. To look into the soul of another person. Only if it seems it will help, which I'm thinking it might, would I do that. First, though, we got to get in there without people thinking we're rabble, we don't belong."

"I'll bet Dr. le Fievre would refer her to you," Mabel said. "He's a dreamy young doctor—it's OK, Teek, I'm over my crush on him—and he saw Mrs. Northwest. Couldn't you do a little mental whammy on him and get him to recommend you as a therapist?"

"This girl is a schemer," Vlad said solemnly. "I like it! But this doctor, is he a good doctor, or is he a quack?"

"Good," Mabel said. "I don't think he treats ducks. Gnomes now and then, though."

"The man lives up to the Hippodramatic Oath," Stan said. "He's a mensch."

"Such people are easy to influence," Vlad said. "Yeah, it's worth a shot. Long way to see this doctor?"

"Fifteen minutes by car," Wendy said. "Big old house, was empty like forever, but a couple of philanthropists helped the town buy it and fit it out, and now we got a little mini-hospital right here in town."

"Stop it," Stan said.

"One of the philanthropists is pretty close, I think!" Vlad said. "And that gives me maybe an idea of the way to come at the poppa. Hand to God, Mabel, tell me: Would little Pacifica be better off with or without her poppa?"

Mabel took a long time to think that over. "She loves him," she said slowly. "But it's like the love gets buried under all this crappy craziness Mr. Northwest has about money. Even after he lost the Mansion and all, he had enough left so the family was still rich, just not super-rich. But he's crazy for more. Paz thinks he's worth at least as much now as he was before Weirdmageddon, but he still wants more, more, more."

Vlad nodded. "Wisest man I knew, little guy, but in the Old Country, he had made some money. He comes to America, right, land of opportunity? He sets up businesses, gives people work, gets invited to the White House, big shot you'd think. But you'd be wrong. He lives in a simple third-floor walk-up apartment. He marries a good woman, she loves cooking and being a housewife and mother. His kids, they go to public schools. He drives a five-year-old car. Dresses simple, neat but simple, plain. Has I think three suits. No servants, not even a cook. One day I say to him, 'Max, you're rich, why don't you make a little show, make things easy for your family?' He says to me, "Vlad, at one time I can eat only one meal. At one time, I can wear only one suit. A child who helps his parents is a happy child, not a spoiled brat with maids and butlers to pamper him. And the money I make, I spread it around. Money is like manure. You spread it, it makes good things, useful, beautiful. Pile it up, and it stinks.' God bless him, my poppa Max."

"Vlad," Stan said, "your poppa is a great man, I think."

"To his son, certainly," Vlad said. "To the world, he's a nobody. But from such nobodies, heroes are made. OK, enough touchy-feely already. Stan, take me to see this bright young doctor who's gonna get us our ticket into the Northwest house."

"With pleasure," said Stan.

* * *

That afternoon, the twins, Wendy, Stan, and Vlad reached the Northwest farm with the traffic jam. Well, not really, but a lawyer had come and Dr. le Fievre's car was there—"I knew we shouldn'ta taken time for lunch," Stan muttered

But Stan parked, and the five of them went to the side door. "Welly," Mabel said, "can Pacifica come for a minute?"

"I will ask her, Miss Mabel," said Wellington.

When Pacifica came, Stan said, "Hiya, Pacifica. We just came to visit, and we brought a friend, Dr. Vlad Raventree. May we come in?"

"Sure," Pacifica said.

Vlad nudged Stan and said quietly, "If she don't ask me personal, I can't come in to a private house."

"It's OK if Dr. Raventree comes in, isn't it?" Mabel asked. "Tell him it's OK. He's got these old world manners, you know."

"Please come in, Dr. Raventree," Pacifica said. She led them to the first-floor living room, and just then, a man whose business suit was so severe it made people afraid it was about to rap them on the knuckles came downstairs. "I'll be going now," the man said in a voice that sounded like the riffle of dusty pages within ancient law books in a moldy library.

When the man had left, Stan spoke up: "Pacifica, I know you won't mind me being nosy, but what was legal-beagle Thayers doing here?"

"He's Mom's attorney," Pacifica said with a hint in her stance that they would get no more than that. She frowned thoughtfully. "Excuse me, but aren't you Danny's great-uncle? Where is he?"

Vlad said, "The bunny rabbit's name was Floogel. Hello, Pacifica. You remember me now."

Instantly, Pacifica's whole posture and bearing changed, relaxed, and she smiled shyly. "Hi," she said. "Where's Danny?"

"Huh?" Mabel asked. "There's a bunny rabbit involved?"

"Trigger phrase I gave her first time I put her in a trance," Vlad said. "Puts her right under again. Pacifica, darling, can you hear me? Yes? Sorry to tell you this, but Danny and his friend Carmilla are for the summer staying on the Falkland Islands."

"Huh?" Stan asked.

"It's the long Antarctic nights, they like," Vlad said in an aside to Stan. "Comes winter, they're off to Prince Edward Island. Children of the night, they should shut up already and settle down!"

"Pacifica?" Mabel asked. "Are you OK?"

Vlad patted Mabel's shoulder. "She can't hear you right now. She's in a light trance, it's OK, no harm done. Only—Pacifica, tell us why the lawyer came, OK, honey? Then you can forget you told us. Oh, also you should know now you are, how do you say it, so above Danny—"

"Dude," Wendy suggested, "I think you mean 'so over.'"

"Thank you, beautiful Wendy, yes! Pacifica, you are so over Danny now. Thinking about him doesn't hurt you, you got pleasant memories of him, but you're ready to go on with your life and have a wonderful time of it, so he's just kind of a sweet dream of the past."

Pacifica nodded but did not smile.

"First," Vlad said, "the lawyer, OK? So why did he come?"

"Mother wanted him to draw up some papers," Pacifica said. "She's changing her will so that I'll get all of her estate. And she cleared out some holds that Father had put on my bank accounts."

"No divorce, nothing drastic on that line?"

"Not yet."

"Good. Used to be in the papers was this column, 'Can This Marriage Be Saved?' It depends. If your momma loves your poppa, yes, there is a very good chance. Good sign that she's not divorcing him yet, good sign. OK, sweet little Pacifica, in a minute you are going to wake up and not know you've been sleeping a short time. I will go up and talk to your mother. I'm a doctor. A head doctor. Between me and the regular young doctor, we'll make her well again. Now when I count three, you will wake up and be happy. One, two, three."

Pacifica's eyes fluttered. "Mom's better today," she said. "I think she'll be OK."

"Glad to hear it," Stan said. "You done good, Pacifica, to come off the job and go take care of your mother. Family. That's real important."

Dr. le Fievre came downstairs smiling. "She's much better," he said, but then he stopped in the doorway. "Oh, I didn't realize you had company. Wendy, Mabel, Dipper, Stan, Dr. Raventree. Let me just tell Pacifica a few things and then I'll let you visit."

"Come on," Mabel said. "I'll go show you the ponies!"

Dipper and Wendy had seen the ponies, and Stan and Vlad really weren't much interested in ponies, but they took a slow walk out to the barn. Jimmy was out in the paddock, exercising Desperado and Molly, and he had time only for a cheerful wave, not a talk, which probably was all for the best.

After a couple of minutes, they saw Dr. le Fievre emerge from the farmhouse and caught him just before he climbed into his banged-up car. "Doctor," said Vlad, whose accent miraculously changed from Old-World _zayde_ to the measured tones of a Viennese medical professional, "have the patient's symptoms improved?"

"Yes, Doctor," the young man said, looking at Vlad with an expression of deep respect. "Physically, she's much better, though she'll exhibit symptoms of withdrawal for up to a month. The key now is to keep her attitude positive."

"Ach, yes," Vlad said. "And that is precisely where I hope to help. Thank you, Doctor, and it was a pleasure consulting with you."

"Entirely mine," said le Fievre, and he drove away.

"Uh, Vlad, did you throw the whammy on him?" Mabel asked.

"You're so sharp you'll cut the other knives in the drawer," Vlad said. "Come, let's go see the lady of the house."

Pacifica took them upstairs and Stan said, "We heard you were feeling bad, so we came to tell you we'll help out all we can. If Pacifica needs a place to stay, we can make room in the Shack. Or if you need errands run or anything—"

"Thank you," Priscilla said. She was out of bed, dressed, and resting in the front parlor. "I think Pacifica and the staff and I can take care of everything."

"Mrs. Northwest," said Vlad, "I think your young doctor mentioned me?"

"Oh, sorry," Stan said hastily. "Mrs. Northwest, this here is Dr. Vladimir Raventree, from Vienna—"

"Trained there only," Vlad said modestly. "From, originally, Romania."

"Dr. le Fievre said you'd come," Pacifica said. "But I don't think I need a psychiatrist."

"One visit," Vlad said kindly. "Just a chat, me an old man who could be your grandfather, you a young woman with troubles she maybe doesn't want to speak to with anyone else. I'm a stranger, I've taken an oath to maintain confidentiality, you don't need to worry."

"He's good, Mother," Pacifica said.

"Just a little chat," Vlad said. He took both of Priscilla's hands in his. "Look into my eyes, Mrs. Northwest. Can you see that I'm a man worthy of trust?"

Reluctantly, Priscilla did as he asked. "Really, I don't think—well. Yes, I trust you, Doctor."

"Just Vlad. You and me, I'd like to be friends. So I am Vlad."

"Priscilla," she said shyly.

"There, I knew you had a beautiful smile hiding in there somewhere. Beautiful, just like your daughter's. OK, now just hold my hands, I know, they're a little cold, that's all right. Cold hands, warm heart. You're tired, no? Just close your eyes and relax. Nice and peaceful. You won't be scared or anxious, you'll feel comfortable and nice, OK? Pacifica, the bunny rabbit's name is Floogel, right?"

"Yes," Pacifica said.

Vlad stepped back and sighed. Pacifica looked asleep on her feet, Priscilla asleep in her chair. "Once before," Vlad said, "I asked Wendy to hear some bad stuff. Wendy, you up for hearing more? It may be hurtful, but I need a witness."

"I think I can take it," Wendy said.

"Heart like an oak, this girl," Vlad said approvingly. "All right, everybody else, shoo! I got some work to do here. Out, out. Mabel, why aren't you going—oh. Very susceptible this one is. OK, Mabel, here you're gonna wake up and go downstairs with your brother and uncle. Get maybe a nosh."

"What?" Stan asked. "She had two lunches already!"

"So maybe a small nibble," Vlad said. "Mabel, I count three, you wake up. One, two, three!"

"Yes, Xyler and Craz, I'll marry both of you!" Mabel mumbled. Then her eyes opened. "OK, gang, we better go downstairs."

"Wendy stays to listen," Vlad said. "The rest of you, go already."

They went downstairs, Mabel showed them the back porch overlooking a now-pristine pool, and Wellington served them coffee (hot cocoa for Mabel) and prepared some watercress sandwiches just for Mabel.

"They got a nice layout here," Stan said. "If it had been me instead of Preston, this is the place I'd pick to live in, not the mansion way up on the hill. Driveway's too steep and twisty there."

"Pacifica's mom didn't look too bad," Dipper said.

Mabel sighed. "You should have seen her when I did," she told her brother. "I think she was about one step from jumping off a bridge somehow."

"Hey, did you square things with Lazy Susan?" Stan asked.

"Oh, yeah," Mabel said. "They're not hurting for waitstaff anyway. I think Susan and Gunther took Paz on out of pity. Between you and me and Dipper, Paz wasn't a great waitress."

"She's not going back?" Dipper asked.

"Probably not," Mabel told him. "If her mom dumps her dad, Pacifica's gonna have to find some way to go to college. She's accepted to Glade Mor in Washington State, but if her parents split, her mom may not be able to afford tuition and all."

"Glade Mor?" Dipper asked. "That fancy rich-girls' school near Seattle?"

"That's the one," his sister said. "But it's co-ed now. Kinda. They have like twenty thousand students, and one thousand of them are guys."

"Whoa!" Stan said. "I'll bet they just go runnin' into that situation! Like somebody jumpin' into what they think is a money pool, but it turns out to be a shark pit."

"Money pool?" Dipper asked.

"I'll stand by my metaphor," Stan told him.

The consultation upstairs took an hour. Then Vlad came down, with a much more relaxed-looking Pacifica beside him and a solemn-looking Wendy. "We'll take our leave now, Miss Northwest," Vlad said in his best Viennese manner. "Your mother is not so very sick. You stick with her, and I think maybe you'll find your father has had a change of heart. You're all right here?"

"Yes, fine," Pacifica said, smiling. "Thank you."

"And your father is due to return-?"

"Some time tomorrow," Pacifica said. "I don't know when, exactly. He'll fly into Portland and then take the helicopter here to the farm. There's a landing area down beside the paddock."

"How long from Portland to here by helicopter?" Vlad asked.

It was a couple of hours by car, but by chopper only forty-five minutes or so, Pacifica thought. They made sure one last time that she didn't need anything or have any errands for them to run, and then they said their farewells.

Back in the car, Vlad said, "What a mess and no wonder. Wendy, promise me you won't go into more detail about what you heard than what I'm gonna say."

"I promise," Wendy said.

"Or if you want, I can wipe those memories," Vlad said. "Your decision."

"Let me keep 'em," Wendy said. "Dipper will probably find out, though."

"That's all right," Vlad said. "Him I trust, too. But remember, everything works out right, this is dead and buried and staked, OK? It doesn't come up again."

They all swore to keep it within the family, as it were.

"Lots of bad stuff in there," Vlad said as they pulled out onto the highway. First, I don't think Pacifica's going to miss my nephew any more. Trouble was, our family invested in the Northwest company, as you know. Northwest was hot to make a deal with the Chinese, expand the brand, build a factory there, get it successful, sell out to the Chinese for big dough. He wanted more capital, but the Raventrees had committed all they cared to. So when Pacifica and Danny parted, Preston blamed his daughter. You coulda kept him on the string until I persuaded his folks to give me more money, kind of thing. So when she was hurting from the rejection, her poppa was mad at her. Then Preston began wooing some investors from Toronto. Canadians. You ever met a Canadian vampire?"

"Not that I know of," Stan said.

"Ha, you wouldn't believe. 'Hello, my name is Reginald, eh? And if it wouldn't be too much trouble, I'd like to bite your neck.' Politest monsters in the world, Canadian vampires. So next—this is hard, Wendy, you want to tell?"

"No," Wendy said. "But I will. This is something Priscilla doesn't know. Just Preston and Pacifica." She took a deep breath. "OK, so some of the Chinese guys were over here talking business with Preston. They're playing hard to get. Interested, but when Preston thinks he has a deal, they add another little condition. So—there's this one old guy, real ugly, Priscilla said, who's kind of the leader of the trade delegation. Preston had a long conference with him, and then—this is awful—he tried to pimp Pacifica to him."

"No!" Mabel yelled.

"Hold on, hold on," Vlad said. "This may not be the real story. I know for sure it isn't the whole one. It's just the story as Miss Pacifica saw it. Mrs. Northwest knows from nothing. But one other person does know. Tomorrow when Mr. Preston comes home, then I ask him some questions, and he answers truthfully, and if it's true that he offered to trade his daughter for a money deal—then, THEN, Miss Mabel, then with my blessing, you can kick the rich man's tuches."


	8. Chapter 8

**Can You Come out to Play?**

**(June 6, 2017)**

* * *

**8\. Things That Can't Be Said**

Stan wouldn't admit it to anybody, but the visit to the Northwests' house had shaken him.

As soon as they dropped the kids off at the Shack, Stan asked Vlad to come down to his house and into his rec room. They shot a little pool—Vlad was rusty, no slouch, but not on his top game, and Stan intentionally held back a little—and Stan asked straight out, "Do you think Preston Northwest's capable of that?"

"This I should ask you," replied Vlad with a keen look at his host. "You're boiling inside, I can tell."

"Yeah, well—it's beyond the pale!" Stan said. "She's practically a little girl—and she's _his _little girl! It makes me sick to my stomach."

"So tell me, Stanley," Vlad said, chalking his cue "how do you size up Northwest? Could he really be so evil? I got a feeling we have to hear his side, how he saw it. So many times, these blow-ups, they happen because of misunderstanding and not talking. And I got a glimpse of his mind last time, but men, you know, they form over a lifetime, and despite all the old-dogs-new-tricks talk, people do change. So tell me—is he capable?"

"Well," Stan said slowly, "when Bill Cipher—I told you about him—"

"Interdimensional triangle guy, yeah, we Raventrees knew something about him when we lived here. Nothing direct, but the ancient Indians—excuse, hard habit to break, the Native Americans, they were scared of him. What about this Bill Cipher?"

"Preston tried to make a deal with him," Stan said. "Offered to be his, I dunno, lackey or office-boy or something. And Cipher turned his head inside-out, they tell me. But he stood there with Pacifica tellin' him, 'Dad, he's evil!' and still made the offer."

"Sounds like it didn't work out so good."

"Yeah, well. The face change didn't last, it wasn't permanent, and later Northwest tried to get on Bill's good side, which he don't have one of, by the way, by buyin' him off with gold reserves. He had a lot of the Northwest fortune tied up in that gold, and when we beat Bill Cipher, the gold was the one thing didn't come back. The magic reversed, the town was put back the way it was before, even Dipper got the Journals back one way or another, but the gold, just gone. And even _with_ the gold bribe, Bill fossilized Pacifica's mom and dad, same as all the rest of the Gravity Fallers him or his minions caught."

"Pretty evil of Northwest, to team up with this guy," Vlad mused. "But it's a big, long, giant step from that to whoring his own daughter out for the sake of a lousy business deal. All I can say is, if Pacifica's right about what happened, she and her mama gotta get out of that house quick. But let's wait. Always a chance that Northwest didn't do what his daughter thinks he did. For her sake, I hope that's the case."

"But when he comes in tomorrow and you find out the truth—"

Vlad made a good shot, two banks and then the three-ball in the side pocket. "In that case," he said, "we let the chips fall where they want to fall. And we try to rescue the mama and the daughter."

"And let Northwest off scot free?" Stan asked. Vlad missed the next shot, and Stan banked the cue ball off three cushions to send the four-ball into a corner pocket.

"Nice shot, that one," Vlad said admiringly. "Nobody gets off scot-free, Stan. We each pay what we owe, you, me . . . and Northwest. He'll pay. Believe me, if he did what his daughter believes he did, he is gonna pay very, very dear."

"This foreign-trade deal, we can probably nail him on violatin' some law or other. And especially if we leak it out that he tried to prostitute his daughter—"

"Meh, politicians they got in now, he'd probably wind up appointed the Ambassador to England or some such. I say we keep the punishment private if we can—oh, Stanley! Oh, beautiful shot you make, even if it misses, yeah, right, tuck that five-ball behind the eight and the seven, don't make this easy on an old man. OK, let me look at the table. Buck says I can make this shot."

"You're on," Stan said.

A second later, Stan laughed. "You bum!" he said. "What was that, vampire magic?"

"Magic, shmagic," Vlad said with a sharp-toothed grin. "Just basic physics. Look up Galileo's Cradle some time, it'll tell you how I did it. Thanks. I like a man who forks over a bet when he loses."

"So do I," Stan said. "And tomorrow if Northwest confesses, I say he's lost a bet."

"But in this case," said Vlad, comfortably just missing his shot on the six-ball, "in this case, he loses, but_ we_ fork _him_."

* * *

Wendy and Dipper were back out at the bonfire glade. "I feel like I need a bath," Wendy complained.

"I knew Preston was bad news," Dipper said. "But I didn't think even he would do something like that."

"Vlad was real good at handling Priscilla and Pacifica," Wendy told him. "He kept them mostly separate—while one was talking, the other one was in a trance and couldn't hear what was going on. But he had them tell some things to each other, true things. There really is a bond between them."

"I always got a feeling that Pacifica's mother was hard on her," Dipper said.

"Well, she backed her husband. Pacifica's mom loves her a lot. But Priscilla's always been under the thumb of some guy or other—her dad was real domineering, and then in college her male tennis coach pushed her and pushed her until she nearly had a breakdown, and then she married Preston. He's a control freak. She adjusted by getting all meek and obedient, but it's like a pecking order—when Pacifica came along, Priscilla dominated her. It really tore her up inside, Dip, but Priscilla did it 'cause she thought that was what Preston wanted her to do."

Dipper shook his head. "That's so messed up. It's more like a knife fight than a family," he said.

"Yeah, Priscilla's problem is PMS," Wendy said.

"How? It's constant, isn't it?" Dipper asked.

"Yeah, but in this case, PMS stands for 'putting up with men's shit.'"

"Don't ever let me get away with anything like that," Dipper said. "Promise me, if I start to act like an idiot, stop me, please."

"Don't worry, man. You get out of line, I'll kick your firm but pliant butt!"

"Ouch. OK, it's a deal."

"There's one other thing about Pacifica I think you ought to know, Dipper. Don't let it upset you."

"It won't," he said. "I know what you're going to say. She has a thing for me."

"Nope," Wendy said. "For Mabel."

Dipper's eyes popped wide open. "What!"

"Relax, it isn't physical attraction. But in a weird, Platonic way, Pacifica's in love with Mabel. I think it's mostly 'cause Mabel's so optimistic and happy, and Paz would love to be that way, too, so—she enjoys hanging with Mabel and she even kinda-sorta imitates her in little ways. But it's hard, 'cause Paz wasn't brought up with the freedom you guys have. She starts to do something fun, immediately, Paz thinks, 'Daddy wouldn't approve.' She might still go through with it, but she has only about half the fun she should get out of it."

"But Pacifica doesn't love Mabel like—well, there's nothing wrong with it, but—"

"Not the way Mabel loves Teek and vice-versa," Wendy said. "Or like me and you."

"Nobody loves anyone the way we love each other," Dipper said.

"Yeah, Paz doesn't want to climb in bed with Mabel or anything, but she wants to hang around with her. She idolizes Mabel in some strange way. It's nearly an obsession. But for her passion pals, she'll pick guys to fool around with." Wendy looked as if she wanted to say something, but then changed her mind. Dipper took her hand. –_What? You can tell me anything._

_Keep this next all to yourself. Mabel may or may not know, but we don't talk about it, OK?_

_-OK._

_Paz is on birth control. She's been all the way a couple times._

—_With Danny Raventree?"_

_No, that's one of the weird things. Danny can only get, you know, in the mood with either a girl he's biting or with another vampire. He and this Carmilla, who must be some piece of work, wanted Paz to get into a threesome with them._

_-Pretty sick._

_Yeah. Although I know you've watched a couple of internet videos, two redheaded girls and one guy—_

_-Yeah, but I was fantasizing both of the redheads were you._

_Good save, man! But there's something seriously wrong with a guy who can't get it on with a girl just because she's alive._

_-Pretty sick, _Dipper agreed.

_So, anyhow, I'm thinking, maybe Paz could go to Olmsted to be near Mabel, instead of the fancy women's college up in Washington. Or is that a bad idea?_

_-I just don't know. Me, I think what Paz needs more than anything is to get a sense that she can make it on her own. Without relying on anybody. It's always good to have friends, but there comes a time, you know, when you've got to prove yourself to yourself._

_She may not be there yet. You can't even start to imagine how bad she felt about waitressing._

_-Probably sort of like I felt playing the dancing wolf boy._

_I guess so. Maybe not as itchy, but something like that._

"Man," Dipper said aloud. "I hope that Grunkle Stan and Vlad can talk some sense into Pacifica's dad. If he doesn't have them arrested for trespassing before Vlad can put him under his spell or whatever."

"I think they oughta get CPS on his butt."

"What's that?"

"Children's Protective Services. State bureau. I mean, when this sick business went down, Paz was still just seventeen—a minor in the eyes of the law."

"Let's suggest that," Dipper said.

"Oh, man, you gotta have rock-solid proof of something like that," Wendy said. "All we got so far is suspicion. By the way, Vlad wants Pacifica to stay over here while this is going on. I don't know if she'll agree or not. I wouldn't in her place."

"Why not?" Dipper asked.

"Let's see, hang with your friends or protect your mom from possibly getting attacked. Which way would you go?"

"Fair enough," he said. "I'll talk to Stan and find out what the plans are. There must be an alternate way for us to protect Pacifica."

* * *

Preston Northwest gave himself a mental pat on the old back. He had the Canadians nailed down to a hefty investment—two hundred million, Canadian, over two years—and he knew that would make NOWest Electronics Advances too attractive for his Asian buyers to ignore. If he could unload that business, reserving distribution in the States and a royalty on each unit sold internationally, he would exceed his old fortune by a margin of twenty per cent or more—and he had an ace up his sleeve that would boost that by as much again, if things worked out.

Finally things were going right. After the final meeting, he called his office and had them arrange the details: Flight from Pearson International to Portland, taking off at 9:05 a.m., then because of the time difference arriving in Oregon at ten a.m. Allow time for Customs, et cetera (though he had been one of the first on the pre-cleared TSA list), have Hulsey ready the Northwest Properties helicopter—a company aircraft, though he used it more for personal travel than for commissioning inspections of timberlands that might be bought and sold.

Figure in a little wiggle room, he'd be home by noon. It irritated him that Priscilla was ill. He'd tried to call her to have her arrange the travel reservations, but reached only Wellington, who apologetically informed him that Mrs. Northwest was ill in bed. So his office made the arrangements instead. Resentfully, Preston had decided to make his sudden arrival tomorrow a surprise.

However, if Priscilla really was ill, he thought he ought to buy her a nice present. He called his office and told his aide, "I want to buy my wife a little something personal and romantic. Get in touch with my secretary for a copy of the items she already has, then go and buy her something nice that's not on the list. Up to a hundred thousand dollars. That's F.O.B. not C.O.D. Consult the directory of companies that we have some dirt on. That'll be good for a hefty discount."

"Yes, sir." How sweet the words. Nowadays it was back always to "Yes, sir," "Right away, sir," and "As you wish, sir." Very nice to hear those things. He was close to the top again, and he deserved the sweet music of groveling underlings.

After he pulled his big switcheroo and stuck the Chinese investing syndicate with Kuàilè Shíguāng—that was a shell company, the putative major shareholder in NOWest Electronics Advances that Presrton had established to trick the Asian syndicate about to buy his interests in Japan, Korea, and China—he would put the sale through, and the Syndicate would wake up one morning in a month or so to find itself in a large decorative frame. The one called "up."

Preston's lawyers were confident that he could argue there was nothing actually illegal by US law in the transaction, but the Asians would be stuck in such a web of regulations and international laws that all they'd want to do would be to get rid of the headache fast.

It would be a simple matter for yet another of his shell corporations to come to the rescue with a buyout offer for the electronics wing that would leave the syndicate solvent, though poorer. The fools would be happy to get away without serious fines or jail time.

In the end, they Asian syndicate would be the loser, he would be the big winner, and as pure rich gravy, he could buy key his interests back for a fraction on the dollar, run the price way high, and pull the scam all over again, maybe with Arab investors.

The world was full of sheep, and a few wolves could easily fleece them. At times Preston had toyed with the idea of buying a ghost-writer to pen his own deeply personal memoir showing suckers how to become successful. Maybe call it something like "The Deal is a Steal." But nah, why give away perfectly good rotten ideas?

These days new vistas opened up for him. He wasn't old—forty-two wasn't old—and with a business-friendly administration in Washington, Preston began to think of opportunities.

Here he was, mud-flap king of the USA, diversified into consumer electronics and transportation, with a finger in so many pies he needed eight or ten extra hands—forestry and lumber products, fossil fuel production, international shipping, health and beauty products sold only in third-world countries that—the beauty part—did not require safety testing, even a mid-level line of clothing and shoes produced for practically nothing by factories in foreign countries who might or might not employ slave labor, didn't pay to check too closely.

He clearly was a huge success and success-wise was on track to become huger. Then maybe divest himself, a little at a time, capitalize his interests, and create a rapport with the local and state-level politicians. Maybe in a few years run for Governor of Oregon. Or—better—the Senate. A term there, and then the Oval Office would be awfully tempting.

And as a government official, he could foresee all sorts of side income, honey-sweet unreported income, flowing into his pockets. He'd have to take lessons in appealing to voters, the common folk, the salt of the earth, the fools and the morons and the trash, but—since he assumed they were mostly fools and morons—that shouldn't be hard.

That afternoon he played a round of golf, visited a spa for a long session in the steam room and a refreshing massage, he managed to arrange dinner with an attractive but ditzy movie star who was in Toronto filming some action-adventure movie—she was half Priscilla's age, cheerful and careless, so who knew where that might lead.

No, he decided, he was tired and such targets were too easily shot down. Not tonight, dear. He'd go home, give Priscilla whatever wonderful present his staff would purchase to signify his undying love for his wife (I must make sure, he thought, to at least look at whatever it is before I give it to her), and maybe they could plan a family vacation. Again. They'd planned three in the last year and a half, but business had always interrupted and they'd canceled at the last minute.

He wondered how Pacifica was handling being on her own. He looked forward to her crawling—that's crude, make that coming—back home, sorry and repentant and, this was key, broke. She wasn't a bad daughter, only disobedient. The way she'd lost that Raventree kid infuriated him, since she must have known his parents were such Old Money the words should be written in Gothic script. And then she'd blown up at him for nothing!

He was, after all, only looking out for her future interests. He was a responsible father and she was sometimes nothing more than a spoiled, conniving little—never mind. There are some things that should not be said.

If he knew one thing for certain, it was that she would come back. And of course there would be a reconciliation. Because she would return in the proper frame of mind.

Groveling.


	9. Chapter 9

**Can You Come out to Play?**

**(June 7, 2017)**

* * *

**9: Rough Landing**

Wednesday morning.

Here's what they came up with: At Vlad's suggestion, Priscilla would spend some time at Ford's house with Lorena as hostess. Stanford was still attending to the last details of his Institute's first year—a successful year, 124 students entering, 122 completing the year of study, with applications enough already from returning and new students for him and Fiddleford to boost the student population cap to 148, more than that and they'd have to hire new staff.

Anyway, Stanford was off busy being a university president, or the equivalent thereof, and Stanley thought he would only be in the way, so Mabel, Wendy, and Dipper were on hand to distract Pacifica while the older ladies visited.

And they visited with a vengeance. Priscilla, at first uncharacteristically shy—in her own circle she used to be treated nicely by other very rich wives, and she could match them in suggestive and slightly ribald repartee, although she knew that behind her back they called her "upstart" and "pushy." She, after all, was only second-generation money, not the real old bonded stuff.

By contrast with the ladies who lunched, Lorena and Sheila—seemed to like her.

That was the huge difference.

Simple as that.

And knowing it nearly unnerved Priscilla. She hadn't, she realized, had friends—real friends, not merely peers whose husbands money made them idle and inclined to bitchiness—since high school!

Sheila had a kind of humor and an openness and honesty that disarmed her, and soon the three of them were laughing and chatting about everything under the sun. Just like old friends.

Sheila remembered when Priscilla won a championship tournament as a college tennis player, making Priscilla blush with pride. But then, frowning, she said, "I still play, but you know something? Coach Allbright was such a hateful dictator that I secretly hate the game!"

"That's a shame," Sheila said. "You're so good at it."

"But that man was worse than having two fathers. I had to keep a log of everything I ate. He had to know who I went to the movies with, and how late I got back. Once three of us cut classes to go off to the beach—and he tailed us there, parked behind us, and dressed the other two girls down, right in front of me. He forced me to get in his car, drove me back to campus, and marched me to the lit class I'd cut, which was already half over. It was humiliating, and I got to despise tennis."

"Try playing just for fun," Lorena suggested. "Play as if it doesn't matter if you win or lose, and neither of you cares."

Sheila agreed: "A friendly game."

"Do you play?" Priscilla asked them.

Lorena said, "Once a week, at the Lakeside Country Club."

Sheila said, "I used to, but I haven't picked up a racquet in ten years. I'd love to start again, though. I'd need someone to give me pointers, I'd be so rusty."

"I'll—" Priscilla said impulsively. Then she fell silent.

"You'll help me?" Sheila suggested.

"If—if you'd like. My hus—Preston's a member of the Country Club, but we haven't been back there since, you know, the end-of-the-world thing—"

"Weirdmageddon," Lorena said. "Has Pacifica told you about her role in that?"

_Pacifica?_ Priscilla shook her head. "She only said the Pines family defeated Bill Cipher."

Sheila leaned forward and put her hand on Priscilla's. "There's a lot more to it than that. You need to know how heroic your daughter was in never-mind-all-that."

"Heroic?" Priscilla's eyebrows rose. "Pacifica?"

Lorena laughed. "Just get Mabel alone sometime and ask her, 'What did Pacifica do during Weirdmageddon?' She'll tell you. You'll be amazed at her courage. She escaped from the monsters, made herself an emergency dress when hers was ripped to shreds, survived, and made her way to the Mystery Shack, where Stanley kept her and a lot of others safe."

"And when they attacked Bill Cipher, Pacifica went right into the Fearamid," Sheila said. She'd heard the story a dozen times from Stan, who was incredibly proud of his niece and nephew—and of Pacifica. Stan's heart had room for lots of kids. "She got catapulted into the air and went in by parachute! And the reason she volunteered for that was—she knew you and your husband had been captured, and she was determined to rescue you."

Captured. Priscilla couldn't talk about that experience—still. She remembered being frozen into statue form—she even remembered being a part of Cipher's Throne of Human Agony, because despite Cipher's claim that the petrified victims weren't conscious any longer—probably—in fact they were, frozen, paralyzed, horror-struck. It was too much.

However, she said softly, "I remember when we came out of that awful trance and could move again, Pacifica was the first person we saw, running up to hug us. That was the first time in years that we felt like a family. The last time, almost, when I thought there was some—some hope for us."

"Don't be too quick to give up," Lorena said. "Dr. Raventree is going to have a long talk with Mr. Northwest. If anyone can show him the error of his ways—"

"That's the trouble," Priscilla said. "Preston doesn't think they're errors. He thinks they're virtues."

* * *

And meanwhile, Dipper, Wendy, and Mabel were spiriting Pacifica right out of the Valley, and Mabel was in the back seat with her, having a very serious conversation, by Mabel standards.

As the Dodge Dart headed north, Mabel said to Pacifica, "Listen, after today, all summer long, I want to hang with you as much as possible."

"I don't know if Mom and I will even stay in Gravity Falls," Pacifica said. "But if we do, I'd love that."

"You ought to think about coming to Olmsted," Mabel said. "They got a great fine-arts program. You could be like a museum curator or art collector! And closer to home, we gotta hook you up with a summer romance!" Mabel said.

"Come on, Mabel," Wendy said from the front seat. "Don't pressure her like that, OK?"a She was driving Dipper, Mabel, and Pacifica up to her aunt Sallie's farm. Pacifica had never been there, and Mabel was eager for her to see Waddles and Widdles in full hog-bloom and to pet Geepers, Gompers's half-sheep, half-goat offspring.

They arrived early in the morning. "Stay put for a minute and watch this," Mabel said, getting out of the back seat of Wendy's Dodge Dart. She bellowed, "Chickens of the farm, assemble!"

Pacifica watched with wide eyes as a flock, almost an army, of Rhode Island Reds scrambled from all directions to cluster around Mabel, looking at her expectantly and with fowl admiration. Mabel barked an order: "Form . . . ranks!"

The older chickens did, lining up in orderly rows. The hens had to chivvy the hatchlings and the yearlings into line—they had not yet met Mabel, to whom the farm's flock had evidently sworn eternal chicken loyalty years ago. Mabel put them through a close-order drill. It would have disgraced a Marine platoon, but as chicken drills went, it wasn't all that bad.

Guinea fowl—Pacifica had never seen one and didn't know what they were—came scurrying over. Not as disciplined as their cousins the chickens, the gray birds thickly speckled with white rushed around more as a mob than a troop, watching the parade and commenting loudly, the young ones peeping, the hens sounding like rusty door hinges, and the males demanding, "Whaaa?" in squawky voices.

Sallie Corduroy, ramrod-straight and smiling as always, came out on the porch, met Pacifica and told her to make herself right at home and then went back inside—she was baking, and the cinnamon aroma of a cooking apple pie scented the air momentarily—and then Mabel led them all to the barn, with an honor guard of chickens marching along on either side of them.

Waddles immediately squealed with delight and came rushing over to have his ears tickled. Widdles wanted Mabel to scratch her head. They were both full-grown now—but not, Dipper noticed, as hoggishly fat as they had been. They were also immaculately clean, having learned at the Shack not to indulge in mud unless the day was exceedingly hot. That Wednesday was mild, so they both shone in pink pig radiance.

Aunt Sallie fed the pigs well and saw to it that they had plenty of room for exercise, and both of them were leaner and probably healthier than they had been at the Shack, where they lazed all day and in the summers ate mostly sugary or fatty snacks that Mabel constantly smuggled to them.

Gompers treated them with his usual slit-eyed, indifferent glance and then aloofness, but Geepers, an odd-looking creature with the wool of a sheep and the features of a goat, came bounding up as if his legs were pogo sticks and bounced around them, calming down enough at last to let Pacifica pet his woolly head.

Then there were the fields. Some of the strawberries and boysenberries were ripe, and they got a couple of pails and did some picking. Wendy found a freakishly large boysenberry, a deep maroon fruit like a strawberry and a blackberry had a child, and gave it to Pacifica, who'd never tasted one. "I can eat it?" Pacifica asked. "It doesn't have to be disinfected or anything?"

"Aunt Sallie doesn't use any pesticides to speak of," Wendy told her. "The chickens and the guineas take care of most of the insects, and the fruit's been basking in the sun and washed by the rain, so it's clean. Here." She ate a smaller one. "See?"

Pacifica tentatively bit into the boysenberry. "It's good," she said. She frowned in concentration. "Juicy! It's a little like . . . um, sort of strawberry, and sort of blackberry, but it's tangy, too."

"Yeah, we won't pick a lot," Wendy said. "Light touch, 'cause when you touch one, it drops right off. Be careful, the plants are spiny. These don't keep worth a darn, so we'll get enough to eat a few and then Aunt Sallie may make a cobbler."

All in all, they wound up with about a quart of boysenberries and a pint of strawberries, which they just ate straight off the bushes. When they got back to the farmhouse, Aunt Sallie was just getting lunch ready—fried chicken, fresh biscuits (hers, Wendy swore, were the best in the state of Oregon), buttery mashed potatoes, green beans ("Frozen," she apologized—her own weren't quite ready to pick yet), and two large fresh tomatoes that she had sliced.

Dipper took a little of everything but the tomatoes. He ate them now—he'd overcome a childhood aversion—but liked them more as a sandwich component than a side dish. But the fried chicken had a crispy coating and the meat practically melted off the bone, and everything else was delicious. The apple pie, hefty and thick and full of cinnamon-spiced sweet apples, just put the crown on the meal.

Pacifica felt dazed. Aunt Sallie's home-cooked lumberjack's lunch was to the food Pacifica had been eating in Greasy's Diner as Chaimovich's performance of Chopin's "Nocturne in E-flat major" was to a kindergarten class playing "Camptown Races" on kazoo, rhythm sticks, and triangle. For once in her life, Pacifica ate as if calories did not count. And with Mabel cheering her on, she felt absolutely no guilt.

What a change.

* * *

At about the same time, Wellington, seated at the breakfast-nook table in the Northwest house, cocked his head, laid down his cards—three Queens, not a bad hand, and he took the seventy-five-cent pot. "I hear the helicopter," he said. "That will be Mr. Northwest."

Stan looked at Vlad, who shrugged in a what-will-be-will-be way. "Shall we go meet him?"

"I would suggest that you wait in the front parlor until he comes into the house," Wellington said. "He will have an assistant helping with the luggage. Please wait in the parlor, and I will announce him."

They agreed, but they couldn't resist holding back and peeking out the side door window. Wellington had stepped out to the far side of the porte-cochere and waited. They saw the gleaming helicopter touch down beyond the barn, making the pasture grass wave like the North Atlantic, and a few minutes later, Northwest, dressed as usual in dark-gray business suit, came striding toward the house, followed by a scrambling young man who toted two heavy-looking suitcases. Wellington relieved the younger man of his burdens, and Preston said something. The assistant hustled back toward the helicopter. Wellington came toward the door, lugging both suitcases, and at that point Vlad and Stan retreated to the parlor but left the door ajar.

They heard Preston ask, "Where is Priscilla?"

"Resting, sir," said Wellington, his voice so soft they had to strain for the words. "You have visitors, sir, in the reception parlor."

Outside, the helicopter took off, the roar momentarily drowning out the faint voices. Then they heard Preston asking, "—who the blazes are they, then?"

Wellington's polite answer came: "I can't say, sir."

The door opened, and Preston, holding a small, beautifully wrapped package with a gold bow, stepped in. "I'm not planning on doing business today—" he said irritably before recognizing his visitors.

"Preston Northwest!" said Vlad in a commanding tone, "Money is nothing but fancy-colored paper!"

Northwest swayed on his feet as if he had been punched by a strong hand wearing brass knuckles, one of which just happened to be in the room, but safely stored in Stan's pocket.

"You are asleep, yes?" Vlad asked.

"Yes," Northwest said in a dull voice.

"Good, good. This will take some time, you should sit down, be comfortable. Which is your favorite chair in this room?"

"I don't have one."

"Then take any."

Preston moved as though sleepwalking to the largest chair, an ornate wingback.

"Figures he'd choose the closest thing to a throne," Stan muttered.

When Preston sat down, Vlad said, "Now, listen to me. Hear only my voice. You are going even deeper into this nice sleep. Deeper and deeper. I want you should imagine you have stepped into a private elevator. It is going from the top floor, ten, to the bottom floor, one. You step in. You press the button for one. Each floor you go down, you're going deeper into such a pleasant sleep. Ten. Nine. Eight. . . ."

By the time the elevator arrived, Preston was deep under a hypnotic trance. "You won't hear me until I say your name," Vlad told him. Then to Stan he asked, "You want I should make him act like a chicken? Once I got a guy to lay an actual egg, no lie. It's kind of entertaining."

Straining not to give an endorsement of the idea, Stan said, "Nnnno. Hell, he's a guy. Bad as he is, we don't want to humiliate him yet. If we do somethin' to him, let it be for a reason."

Vlad nodded. "You are a better man than you want people to know, Stanley. OK, here we go. Maybe we should ask Wellington does he have any of those what you call them, barf bags handy. We may need them." Then, taking off his jacket, the old vampire said, "Preston Northwest!"

"I hear you," Northwest murmured.

"We are going to talk about some serious things," Vlad warned. "You will not hesitate but will always tell us the truth." Since this was Northwest, Vlad repeated that twice and made Preston repeat the words, too, and agree to them.

And then it began.

* * *

Quite late that afternoon Wellington drove over to Stanford's house and brought Priscilla and Pacifica—just them—back to the Northwest farmhouse. They came into the living room, saw Preston, and visibly stiffened.

"Now, now," Vlad said in his kindest voice. "We are gonna clear the air a little bit here. Nobody's all the way to blame. Well, your husband and your dad is mostly to blame, but we're gonna talk it out, get a few facts on the table that maybe you did not know. I want you should both sit down and relax."

In twenty seconds he had both Pacifica and her mother in a light trance. "Now. Preston," he said, "can you hear me?"

"Yes."

"And Mrs. Priscilla and Miss Pacifica, you can hear me too, correct?"

"Yes," the two said in unison.

"And you can all hear each other. Preston, you first. Why were you upset when Pacifica and my nephew Daniel stopped seeing each other?"

In a matter-of-fact way, Preston said, "Priscilla and I have given Pacifica every advantage. Daniel comes from a wealthy family. He is a good financial and social match for our daughter and would have been a very acceptable husband for her. And when they broke up, I lost some important leverage over the Raventree family and their money."

"Why is money so important to you?"

"A man measures his success by money."

"Mm-hmm," Vlad said thoughtfully. "Ever think what's going to be when you get old, when your wife has left you, when your daughter won't even talk to you? A pile of loot is gonna make you a success, you think? Money going to help you then?"

"That won't happen," Northwest said.

"Miss Priscilla, would you leave your husband? Don't anybody get emotional, this is ideas we're talking here, not feelings. Would you?"

"Yes," Priscilla said. "I love Preston, but he runs my whole life. I can't stand to watch him turn Pacifica into a robot—like me."

"You hear that, Preston? What do you say to that?"

"I—didn't realize Priscilla felt that way," Preston said. "I thought she enjoyed all the advantages my wealth gave her."

"Pacifica? Darling, tell your poppa what you did, how you were feeling."

Pacifica said, "I can get along without Father. I took a job. It was hard, but I could make it on my own. Mom and I together could make a living. I know when I'm twenty-one I'll get an income of a hundred thousand dollars a year for the rest of my life from a trust fund. Until then, I can work as a waitress or a cleaning lady or a maid."

"Do you want to leave your father?"

"I do. Because of what he did."

Vlad said, "I think maybe he doesn't know yet, or maybe doesn't admit it. You tell your poppa what he did to you, back in March."

In a detached voice, as if she were reciting a recipe, Pacifica said, "Daddy was negotiating with five men. One of them was Mr. Lee. He is about fifty years old and is fat and grotesque. Daddy wants these five men to buy one of his businesses and establish it in Asia. One evening Daddy told me to go to Mr. Lee's room because he wanted to ask me some things about American schools. He was thinking of sending his granddaughter here to be educated. I went to the room and knocked and he opened the door and told me to come in and strip. He was naked."

Stan noticed that Preston convulsively gripped the arms of his chair, though he didn't rise or say anything.

"What did you do?" Vlad asked.

"I ran. I ran to the foyer and grabbed my purse and drove away in my car. I drove all night, just around the Valley. Finally I needed gas. My card wouldn't work. I had some cash. I found out the next morning all my accounts were cancelled. I went to the diner for breakfast. Lazy Susan asked me what was wrong. I told her I couldn't go home again. She didn't ask me details. I told her I couldn't go back to my parents. She offered me a job and helped me find a room. That's what happened."

"Preston, what do you have to say?"

Preston's face turned beet red. "I didn't know! I swear, Huan Lee seemed like a nice man! I thought he wanted to ask Pacifica about school—he told me she despised him because of his race and called him nasty names—"

"Pacifica, is this true?"

"No. That's a lie. All he said was 'Come in and get undressed.' I didn't speak to him at all."

"Preston," Vlad said, "this is the absolute truth, what your daughter tells you. Priscilla, why is it you think your husband didn't immediate know there was something real wrong there?"

"Preston doesn't pay attention to us when he has a business deal in the works," Priscilla said. "I'm sorry, but it's true."

"OK. Now, I'm gonna wake you guys up. Listen carefully. I'm gonna watch, see what happens, anything starts out that should be stopped, I'm gonna say 'Under!' just like that, poof, you all go back to sleep. But when you wake up, you're gonna be calm. You'll remember what happened, and together you decide where we go from here. And if you feel, now show your feelings! Ready? I'll count, and at zero, you wake up. Three. Two. One. And zero, wake up now."

For a moment all three just stared at each other. And then Preston lunged out of his chair. Vlad opened his mouth to stop it, because frankly it looked as if Preston was going to strangle his daughter, and under the same impression, Stan yelled and stepped forward—

No.

Northwest fell heavily on his knees in front of Pacifica, shaking and sobbing. "I didn't know!" he said. "As God is my witness, Pacifica, I didn't know what a—what a scum—how evil that man was! I should have gone with you, I see that, but—baby, I'm so sorry! I don't deserve it, but could you forgive me?"

Than somehow all the Northwests were hugging. For some moments they were incoherent, but then Preston stood up and said, "I have one piece of business to do."

Priscilla looked stricken, but Preston kissed her cheek. "This won't take long." He took out his phone and called a number. "Pete. Preston here. No, not coming in today, but listen. This is important. Call Huan Lee. Yes, him. Write this down. This is my message to him: The deal is off. If you ever set foot in the States again, I'll have you arrested. No, Pete, tell him exactly that. I'm serious. I know how much it means. Pete, don't argue. Send the message. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Some changes are coming."

His face still wet with tears, Preston said, "All right. This has gone far enough. I'm going to end it. Priscilla, by August, I'll be completely retired. I'll do the job I should have been doing all along—I'm going to be a real husband and I'm going to try to be a real father. I'm so sorry. I—what can I say? I was blind! But—I don't want to be an old dying rich man all alone in the world. Pacifica, I'll let you do and be whatever you want. Priscilla, we'll do things together again, like when we first married, whatever you want to do. I think we'll have more than enough money for the rest of our lives, and if we don't, hell, I can be a busboy at Greasy's!"

"Come," Vlad said to Stanley.

In the car on the way back, Stan asked, "You think this will take?"

Vlad shrugged. "Who knows?" Vlad said. "Important thing, this burden is theirs. From here on, we don't interfere. Oh, if Miss Pacifica runs away, needs a friend, or Mrs. Priscilla has to find a place to stay, that's different. Help them if the need comes But right now, the important thing is—they gotta try to make a family. The odds maybe are against them."

"Well," Stan said. "I think if they'll just unbend a little bit and Preston will stop chasin' every dime, they'll find they got more friends in town than they know. People here forgive easy."

"That is good," Vlad said. "That alone evens the odds a little bit. So. I did my best, is all I can say. I'll stop by again one more time, drop in as Dr. Raventree, see how the family is doing. But I won't do that in the next couple days, let them get to know each other again first. I'll do it after."

"After what?" Stan asked.

"After you and me take at least five thousand each from some pigeons down in Vegas. You still game?"

"Ha!" Stan said. "Vlad, I'll tell ya—THOSE odds, I like!"


	10. Chapter 10

**10\. Chips Fall Where They Fall**

* * *

**June 8, 2017**

**From the Journals of Dipper Pines: **_Thursday Morning: It's hard to believe that whole Pacifica drama wrapped up yesterday. It seems more like two weeks! But maybe things are settling down. Paz thinks that her dad is serious about trying to change. Maybe he is. But he's kind of changed before . . . and then changed back._

_I guess we will see. Supposedly Preston has set things in motion so he can retire as the president of Northwest Family Enterprises and will become like an honorary Chairman of the Board, with no real say in the company, though he'll be entitled to retirement income and all. He won't become so rich that he can fill a bin with money and jump in it and burrow through it like a gopher and throw it up in the air so it can hit him on the head, but he'll do well enough._

_Pacifica says they'll be comfortable, which means they'll still have more money than Wendy and I will ever see! He's promised to take the family on a trip at the end of the summer or in the early fall, and he says they will go wherever Pacifica and her mom decide. He just wants it to be somewhere where they can reconnect as a family, she says. Fingers crossed for her._

_This morning Grunkle Stan and Vlad Raventree flew to Las Vegas for a couple of days of unwinding. That means Stan will come home with a little more money than he left with, I suppose. He always does._

_Mabel is planning for next week—one week from today is Grunkle Stan's and Grunkle Ford's birthday, so she's going into full-bore party-planning mode. Oh, and that evening, the fifteenth, the episode of "Ghost Harassers" on which we appeared will hit Webflix! I'm going to hook up the big TV in the parlor and we'll have the after-party there. I hope at least some of our stuff gets in. It would be neat if the Invisible Wizard footage Mabel and I took makes it in._

_That reminds me: Soos told me about a mystery right here in the Shack that sounds as if it's just the kind of thing I used to investigate. Mabel's willing to help me out, so maybe tomorrow night we'll try to solve the mystery of where Soos's socks have been vanishing to. It sounds harmless, anyway, and I haven't done one of my "Guides to the Unexplained" for two or three years, so we'll see what we can do with it!_

_Meanwhile, more tourists seem to show up every day. Today looks super-busy—I just have a little time left after Wendy and I did our run and then we had breakfast—before the work day begins. So for today, guess I'll sign off. I hope the Guide video turns out good!_

* * *

Priscilla asked, "Do you think you can do it, Preston?"

Preston Northwest, sitting at the breakfast table alone with his wife, did something he had not done in ten years. He reached for Priscilla's hand and squeezed it. Right there at the breakfast table, a grown man holding hands with his own wife.

"I have to do it," he said. "I had—don't laugh, darling—a vision that terrified me. I saw myself seventy years old, cranky and crabbed and hated by everybody in town. And you had left me, and Pacifica had vanished God knows where, and—and I realized that was it. That was the rest of my life, nobody to love me and nobody I could love. And I wanted to die. Just die and get it over with."

"Preston, no," Priscilla said. "I wouldn't leave you."

"Yes, you would," he said seriously. "Any woman in her right mind would leave a man like the one I was becoming. And I couldn't blame her if she did. I was miserable and I made everyone else miserable. I—I want to look at the world again. Feel some kind of excitement not about money, but about beauty. And the people I love. Because I do love you and Pacifica, you know. I haven't shown it—but I feel it. I'll just ask that you stand by me and help me and when I start to ignore my family to make more money—just beat me about the head, would you?"

"I'd be glad to," Priscilla said.

"Are you going to be all right?" Preston asked. "I mean—"

"I know what you mean," she said softly. "I don't know. I'll try. I was doing so well for five years and then—well, I guess people like me can't afford to fall off the wagon, can they? So I won't. I'll try my very best. And I'll need your help and Pacifica's too."

"I'll give you all the help I can," he promised. "Whole-heartedly. You and I have to lean on each other, I suppose."

"We'll make it work together," she promised.

And they kissed. Parents of a teenager and all, and they kissed at the breakfast table. Really, what is the world coming to?

* * *

A little later that day, Mabel, Candy, Grenda, and Pacifica dropped in at Greasy's Diner for a double purpose: One was for Pacifica to collect the small amount of money still owed to her for her couple of days' work. The second was to have lunch.

"Your hair is very different," Candy said, tilting her head. "Can you not have it dyed to blonde again?"

"I'm just gonna let it grow out," Pacifica said. "Maybe it'll remind me not to do stupid things."

"The pony tail's nice, though," Grenda told her. "It shows off the shape of your face real well."

"I think she's—" Mabel began, but then a boy's voice interrupted her.

"Miss?"

They all looked around. A tallish young man—Mabel guessed him at twenty—stood at the table. He wore good trousers, but a red-plaid flannel shirt. He also wore rimless glasses and had sandy-blond hair and high cheekbones. "Who?" Mabel asked.

"Um—her. You," he said, shyly nodding toward Pacifica. "Don't you, uh, work here?"

"I did, for a while," Pacifica said.

"Don't bother her, buddy!" Grenda warned.

"Oh, I—uh, no, I didn't—uh—you served me lunch several times, and, uh—I just wondered, um, I haven't been in town very long, so I suppose you have a boyfriend."

"No," Pacifica said with the cutest smile. "Not right now. Why?"

"Oh," he said, his blue eyes lighting up. "Um. I just wondered—I'm working, well, on my lunch break now, but, um. Would you like to go to a movie, maybe? Friday night? Tomorrow? Maybe?"

"Maybe," Pacifica said. "But I'd have to know who you are."

"Oh, um. I'm Curtis Seabrook. Um. Most people call me Curt. I, uh, I'm working for, um, the Corduroy Lumber Company."

"Ooh, you are a lumberjack!" Candy exclaimed. "Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of Roadkill County!"

"No," the young man said. "I'm, um, a bookkeeper. That's all. In the, um, summer. I'm in college. I have an associate's degree in business, and I'm working for a bachelor's in management. Um. At Western Alliance. That's, uh, that's in California."

"Oh, a college man!" Grenda said. "That's different."

"Interesting!" Mabel said. "My brother is going to Western Alliance in the fall. I'm going to Olmsted. It's—" she gave Pacifica a meaningful glance—"only three miles away from the WAU campus!"

"Just a movie, OK?" Pacifica said. "I'm kind of recovering from a bad dating experience."

"Just—yeah, just a movie! That's all. Uh, but if you want, I could take you to dinner first. There's a good seafood restaurant—but you know that, you probably live here."

"I've heard of it," Pacifica said, and her eyes were dancing with amusement. "It's real expensive, though. Are you sure you could afford that?"

"Oh, sure," he said. "I—well, I don't earn all that much from the lumber company, I'm not much more than an intern really, but—well, yeah, my folks are pretty well off, and the job is more for my resumé than—it won't make me rich, but I've saved my whole salary so far, so, yeah, I can afford dinner and a movie."

"Will you let me buy the popcorn?" Pacifica asked.

"Um, sure!" he said. "Unless, you know, it would hurt your budget."

Grenda laughed. "Why, she's—"

Mabel nudged her hard. "She's our best friend!" Mabel said. "You'll help her decide which of those fancy dishes to order, won't you?"

"I'd love to," Curt said. "Oh, and I won't, you know, dress like this—this is just sort of the work uniform, not that there's a real uniform, but I'd look out of place if I didn't dress like everybody else, so, um. But you don't have to dress up or anything! We can go casual, you know. I mean, jeans and a top would be OK."

"Listen, Curt," Mabel said. "Between us, we can get Elise here all dolled up, so you just worry about showing her a good time, OK?"

"Sure," he said. "Oh, gee, is that the time? I have to get back to—oh, wait, where do I pick you up tomorrow? And when?"

"Oh, here will be fine," Pacifica said. "I don't have to work, but I'll be here at—six?"

"Six, perfect!" Curt said. "And can I call you Elise?"

"Mm, call me by my nickname," Pacifica said. "Paz will do."

"Paz," he said as if tasting the word. Evidently he liked the flavor. "Paz. Thanks! I'll be here at six. Oh, the movie—"

"We'll talk about which one to see over dinner," Pacifica said. "You'd better hurry to work. I'll see you tomorrow at six sharp."

"Sharp," he said, and he hurried out.

Grenda fanned herself. "Am I mistaken or is Curt hot?"

"He is super heated," Candy said. "Rugged features, and yet soft, kind eyes and the spectacles make him look intellectual."

"Don't rush things, though," Mabel warned. "I don't think he knows you're a rich girl. Keep him guessing for a little while and scope him out."

"I hope it works, though," Pacifica said. "He's so cute and nervous to be a college guy! And I can see Dad's face if I told him, 'I'm going to marry Curt. He's a bookkeeper!'"

"Would he be very upset with you?" Candy asked.

It was Pacifica's turn to look surprised. "No," she said, sounding pleased. Actually, I don't think he would be. Oh, let's get out of here and go someplace where it's just us girls, please. I—I think I need a good cry!"

* * *

That evening, in the men's room of the Gold Tooth Casino, not quite on the Vegas strip but not too far away, Vlad asked Stan, "Look, could you do me a favor? It's embarrassing, I shouldn't ask, but if you don't want to, say the word."

"What is it?" Stan asked. The two gentleman, Stan "mature," Vlad looking "elderly," stood side by side doing what guys often do in men's rooms.

"It's embarrassing," Vlad repeated. "But when I step back from this thing, no flush. They all work on the infra-red whooptydoopty _dzhimdzhik. _Thing is, my people, we don't reflect in mirrors, same thing here. I step back, no flush. So could you oblige me by, uh—"

"Got it covered, Vlad," Stan said. So when they finished, Stan quickly waved his big hand in front of the little red electric eye, and both urinals flushed at almost precisely the same time.

"Thanks," Vlad said. "It's embarrassing, like I say, you know, a man don't want to leave a mess behind, what would people think. So—what do you say, Blackjack?"

"Yeah, I think the guys at the poker tables are startin' to think you and me are teamin' up on 'em. What's your take so far?"

"By my count, four thousand three hundred and twenty to the good. You?"

"Not hardly that much. About four thousand two. But I ain't complainin'."

"Well, this is a new place to me. You played in here before?"

"Uh-uh. Nobody here's apt to recognize me. Which is why I think we can make out pretty good at the Blackjack tables for a while. Say until we double our take?"

"Double is good. I like double."

"After you, Vlad."

So they picked up a couple of drinks—Vlad a Vodka martini (with his metabolism, he could drink half a dozen and show no effects—or, as he planned, he could drink about three and start to act a little smashed, lull the dealer's suspicions) and Stan chose a gin-and-tonic, or what he called "the Gambler's Friend." Thing is, you could get one, drink it half down, freshen it with tonic, and so appear to be imbibing for a good while without actually consuming a significant amount of alcohol.

He and Vlad were both expert players. Though modern casino practice makes it all but impossible to count cards in a Blackjack game, it is only mostly impossible, which means—as Vlad would say—"Mostly impossible means a little possible."

So the two friends settled in and played until they suspected the dealer was suspecting _them_—a couple of hours—and first Vlad and a few hands later Stan got up, left the table, and made their way to a different place.

On the way over, Vlad said, "Meh, this neon and stuff, I don't like so much. But oy, are the dealers getting dumber!"

"I'd say they are," Stan said. "I worked in a casino one time, oh, years ago, I was barely out of high school. But I dealt a mean hand of poker. These guys, if you wanted to cheat them, they think the prevention's all with the TV cameras in the ceiling, right?"

"Right, with the profiling and the facial recognition software and what-not—which in my case does not work, you understand—they lose the edge."

"Not to mention the chips," Stan said. "Hey, did you double your take?"

"Complaining, I'm not," Vlad said. "I'm about seven thousand five ahead of the game now. You?"

"Eight thousand, six hundred," Stan said.

"Yeah, I thought you was real lucky that last hand I watched," Vlad said. "Dealer had a nineteen, had to stand, you had a twenty."

"The hard way," said Stan, who had started with the aces of hearts and clubs and then was dealt the Jack of diamonds, the trey of hearts, the and the five of spades.

"I thought he was about to throw up, the look on his face when that five turned up. Stanley, you are a lucky man."

Stan grinned and shrugged. "Eh, I guess it's genetic."

The evening was young. By the time it was old, the two were ready to head back to Gravity Falls, both in a good mood, richer in the aggregate by about nineteen thousand dollars.

But Vlad had the last laugh. That weekend, Stan drove him to Portland to catch his fight back to Chicago. It wasn't until he stopped for gas on the way home that Stan saw the little white corner of the envelope peeping out from the crack between the back and the seat on the passenger's side. He pulled it out and read the note inside:

_Stanley,_

_Thank you and your beautiful wife Sheila for your hospitality. And keep this. I love that you paid for the plane trip, but what Daniel did was hurting my conscience, and I hope that helping the little blonde Pacifica girl has put it right. If it did, that is reward enough for me. Anyway, I did beautiful in the Vegas games, I'm not hurting, so you take this little gift as a talant, a souvenir, and you and Sheila use it to do something real nice together. Keep in touch, you got my email, and if you ever come to Chicago, everything is on me. Be well, my friend._

_Vladimir Raventree_

That was nice. The ten one-hundred-dollar bills were nice, too, but just having a kindred spirit like Vlad—

"Man," Stan said as he waited for the kid to pump the gas, "that's about the nicest of all."

Heck, he was in such a good mood that he didn't even offer to flip the pump attendant double or nothing.

* * *

The End


End file.
